Standing at a New Historical Starting Point and Pushing Forward Anti-Money Laundering in China in an All-Round Way
On April 10, the 2019 PBC Anti-Money Laundering Work Conference was held in Xi’an. The conference fully recognized anti-money laundering (AML) achievements made by the PBC in 2018, analyzed current AML situation, and made arrangements for AML work to do in the coming days. Liu Guoqiang, member of the Communist Party of China (CPC) PBC Committee and deputy governor, attended and addressed the conference.
It was held at the conference that under the correct leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the PBC has performed conscientiously the duties of organizing and coordinating national AML work. It tackled difficulties in collaboration with members of the Joint Inter-Ministerial Conference on Anti-Money Laundering (JIMCAML) and took active steps in preparation for the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) peer review so that the Mutual Evaluation Report of China was adopted by the FATF Plenary, symbolizing significant AML progress made in China. Achievements have also been made in multiple aspects of the AML work such as system, mechanism and regulation building, supervision, investigation and mutual assistance, monitoring capacity building, and international cooperation.
The conference noted that we should further enhance our stance so as to be keenly aware of AML importance from the standpoints of safeguarding national financial security, promoting the modernization of China’s governance system and capacity, and improving international security order, and work hard to enhance overall AML performance in China.
The conference required that while standing at a new historical starting point, we should align ourselves with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and push forward AML efforts in China in an all-round way. First, solid work should be done to strengthen the leadership of the CPC over AML work and guarantee the effectiveness of AML efforts with political backing. Second, work needs to be done to improve the AML system and mechanisms continuously, bring the role of the JIMCAML into full play, and further enhance the coordination between the PBC and financial regulatory bodies, agencies supervising designated non-financial businesses, as well as law enforcement authorities. Third, the building of a system of AML regulations should move ahead and rules be established or improved as soon as possible to address regulatory priorities, difficulties and vacuums. Fourth, more efforts should be put into team building to cultivate a strong AML team for the central bank. Fifth, the input of resources and manpower should be scaled up to deepen participation in international AML governance and better support China’s development strategy.
Attendees included officials in charge of AML work from PBC Shanghai Head Office, branches, operations offices as well as provincial level and sub-provincial level central sub-branches. Also attending the conference were representatives from the PBC Anti-Money Laundering Bureau, China Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring & Analysis Center and relevant PBC departments.
