December 3, 2005
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Statement on Actions to Combat Money Laundering and Terrorist Finance

We are committed to fight against those who seek to abuse the international financial system for criminal or terrorist purposes. Tragic events such as those in London, Amman and in other parts of the world remind us of the critical need for continued action by the international community against such threats. This year we have taken forward a program of practical measures that has significantly improved our ability to freeze terrorist assets; enhanced the international exchange of information relating to money laundering and terrorist financing; and developed better tools to disrupt financial crime.

We are committed to ensuring effective and timely action to deny funds to terrorists and encourage other countries to take similar actions. We have taken the following specific steps that enhance processes to freeze terrorist assets and improve our ability to disrupt terrorism: (i) ensuring up to date contact and co-ordination arrangements; (ii) undertaking early and constructive consultation prior to designation of terrorists; and (iii) sharing details of criteria required for designation. Building on this, we have contributed to wider international efforts to implement UN obligations on identifying terrorists, freezing their assets, and prohibiting unauthorized dealings with them. We are committed in the Financial Action Task Force to examining and strengthening implementation of such targeted financial sanctions against terrorists.

Systems to disrupt money laundering and terrorist financing work most effectively when information necessary for relevant authorities and private sector institutions to operate is shared and acted upon. We urge supervisory authorities and financial intelligence units to continue to develop and use international information sharing arrangements. We are committed to ensure that critical information can be readily accessed by the private sector and we are also committed to obtaining greater private sector input to the assessment of current risks from money laundering and terrorist finance vulnerabilities.

Organized criminals and terrorists cannot operate without ready access to financial resources and they often exploit existing weaknesses in international financial controls. We are committed to tackling such vulnerabilities and are working closely with the Financial Action Task Force to develop a mechanism that provides the capacity to better target specific threats and deploy appropriate measures to deal with such threats.

We reiterate our full support to the permanent involvement of the international financial institutions in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, and note the critical importance of their efforts to assess compliance and to provide countries with well-targeted and coordinated technical assistance. 

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