Since late April 2020, the Director of the Financial Intelligence Office (GIF) has been formally appointed as the Co-chair of the Asia/Pacific Joint Group (APJG), a regional sub-group of the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) which is responsible for establishing sanction and monitoring lists under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering organization.
In response to the impact of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Director of GIF serving as the Co-chair of the APJG, has participated or chaired over nearly 20 virtual meetings until the end of 2020, including the follow-up meetings of the 3 jurisdictions under monitoring, discussion meetings with ICRG regional sub-group members, and FATF plenary meetings, etc.
Currently, there are 3 Asia-Pacific jurisdictions under monitoring, of which one has just been nominated to ICRG in October 2020. Continued as the Co-chair of the APJG, the Director of GIF chaired over 8 virtual meetings in relation to the 3 Asia-Pacific jurisdictions in January 2021, so as to follow up and review their progress of the anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing activities. The above mentioned monitoring list can be found on the website of GIF (https://www.gif.gov.mo/web1/en_highriskjurisdict.html) and FATF
(http://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/high-risk-and-other-monitored-jurisdictions/documents/increased-monitoring-february-2021.html)
As the Co-chair of the APJG, the Director of GIF reported on the progress of the Asia-Pacific region’s jurisdictions included in the monitoring list at the ICRG group meeting in the form of virtual meeting on 17th February in accordance with ICRG’s follow-up procedures, as well as participated in the relevant discussions during the FATF plenary meeting on 25th February.
As always, the Macao Special Administrative Region will continue to nominate staff to participate in international anti-money laundering organization affairs and actively participate in international work on combating money laundering and terrorist financing.
