PM Hun Manet attended the plenary meeting of the Council of Ministers at the Peace Palace on February 2, 2024. STPM
The government has issued a sub-decree which revises several articles regarding the organisation and function of the National Facilitation Committee on Anti-Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing and Proliferation Financing.
In the February 23 sub-decree, made public on March 3, Prime Minister Hun Manet revised articles 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of the January 2022 sub-decree.
The revised Article 5 explains the committee’s power to call relevant ministries and institutions for meetings, while Article 6 gives it the right to form sub-committee to support its work.
Article 7 explains that the committee is administered by the Cambodia Financial Intelligence Unit (CAFIU), with its functions to be decided by the committee chair.
Article 8 details the financial operations of the committee, explaining that it will receive its budget from the National Bank of Cambodia, but is also authorised to receive and manage funds, donations and resources from other sources. These can be used to provide incentives.
Article 9 gives the committee the right to use the stamp of the Ministry of Justice in the course of its work.
Minister of Justice Koeut Rith is the current chair of the committee.
Government spokesperson Pen Bona said on March 3 that the revision of some components of the committee is necessary to increase its effectiveness in combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
“The revisions aim to make the functions of the committee smoother, such as the revisions about calling for meetings,” he added.
Cambodia and Morocco were removed from the “Money Laundering Grey List” of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – an intergovernmental body founded in 1989 to devise policies to tackle money laundering – in February last year, thanks to the Kingdom’s efforts to combat money laundering, terrorism financing and weapons proliferation financing.
The Kingdom was on the grey list in 2019, after being removed in 2015.
According to FATF, Cambodia has been actively working to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes.
