Anti-Money Laundering Steering Committee holds first meeting

Deputy PM Vuong Dinh Hue speaks at the meeting (photo: VGP)

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue, head of the committee, chaired the function.

The committee is responsible for assisting the Prime Minister in preparing a strategy, plans, policies and programmes in the prevention and combat of money laundering.

It directs the implementation of Vietnam’s member duties in the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) and plan to fully realise recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on money laundering.

The committee coordinates with counter-terrorism forces to study and propose laws, programmes, and measures against the financing of terrorism across the country to State relevant agencies.

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy PM Vuong Dinh Hue highlighted the committee’s important activities including national risks assessment on money laundering and terrorist financing.

This aims to help the Government and the Prime Minister issue legal policies on preventing, fighting and handling violations in the field, thus ensuring a healthy financial market and business production environment, he said.

According to Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Nguyen Dong Tien, under a national action plan on preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing in 2015-2020 signed by the Prime Minister, the SBV was assigned to assess national risks on money laundering while the Ministry of Public Security assess national risks on terrorist financing.

This will be an useful reference for an APG group to evaluate the mechanism of anti-money laundering and terrorist financing in Vietnam, which is set to be conducted in the fourth quarter of 2019./.

NDO