Press Release No. 04/17

Press Release: IMF Convenes Workshop on Anti-Money Laundering Measures at Joint Vienna Institute

January 29, 2004

The Legal Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is holding a five-day seminar at the Joint Vienna Institute entitled Legislative Drafting Workshop on Anti-Money Laundering Measures: Responding to the Revised FATF 40 Recommendations.. The workshop, which runs from January 26 - 30, 2004, has been organized in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which is headquartered in Vienna.

Senior government officials from Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are attending the workshop that is funded through grants from the governments of Austria, Italy, Japan, and the Netherlands, as well as by the IMF. Lecturers from the IMF, UNODC, and government and banking officials from Belgium, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, and the United States, will make presentations on topics such as the criminalization of money laundering, financial intelligence units, and the application of the new standards to designated non-financial businesses and professions, such as real estate agents, lawyers, and accountants. The January 2004 workshop follows an earlier legislative drafting workshop for the same countries on combating the financing of terrorism that was held at the Joint Vienna Institute in August 2003.

The workshop is designed to assist countries in drafting legislation that incorporates the Financial Action Task Force 40 Recommendations, which are a set of international standards against money laundering that were revised in June 2003. As a result of the June 2003 revision, the anti-money laundering laws of the vast majority of countries will need to be amended to adhere to the stricter standards of the new FATF Recommendations.

The Joint Vienna Institute (JVI) is a permanent training institute in Austria for officials and private-sector representatives from countries in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that are making the transition from centrally planned to market-based economies. Its Primary Members are the IMF, the Austrian Ministry of Finance (BMF), and the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB). Contributing Members include the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

For further information about the anti-money laundering workshop, please contact Mr. Jean-Francois Thony, Assistant General Counsel, International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, jthony@imf.org, or Mr. Ross Delston, Consulting Counsel, rdelston@imf.org, or by telephone at the Joint Vienna Institute, 43-1-798-9495.