Premier William Lai attended the APG Third Round Mutual Evaluation Opening Ceremony today (November 5) and declared that Chinese Taipei shall be subject to a two-week evaluation starting today. He thanked David Shannon of the assessment team on behalf of the government for their support for Chinese Taipei and emphasized that the evaluation is just the beginning. Chinese Taipei will continue to abide by related regulations of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) and the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) and continue to improve all anti-money laundering (AML) operations, fulfill responsibilities, and play crucial roles in the international AML system.

        Premier Lai stated that Chinese Taipei entered the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) in 1997 as a founding member and that it was also the first Asian country to pass a dedicated AML legislation. Chinese Taipei has always adhered to regulations and requirements of the APG. Chinese Taipei was included in the general follow-up list in the 2007 evaluation. However, after the second-round mutual evaluation ended in 2014, Chinese Taipei was listed in the transitional follow-up list due to regulatory compliance issues of certain overseas branches of financial institutions.

        Premier Lai emphasized that the government of Chinese Taipei has implemented multiple measures in recent years, including improving the standards of operations of financial institutions in Chinese Taipei, requiring financial institutions to actively report incidents, strengthening supervision of overseas branches, and requiring enhanced internal management and control. The government also established the Anti-Money Laundering Office, Executive Yuan in March last year (2017) as a dedicated unit to advance and connect relevant authorities and the private sector in (AML) operations.

        The Premier also pointed out that the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan also worked together to pass multiple important regulations, including the amendment of the “Money Laundering Control Act,” expansion of the scope of confiscation, assigning AML duties and obligations to nonfinancial institutions, jewelry retailers, attorneys, accountants, and land administration agents, amendments to more than 140 articles in the “Company Act” to meet regulations of the APG and the FATF’s 40 Recommendations, such as canceling the old regulations regarding bearer shares to make the overall business environment more transparent.

        The Premier stated that the government also amended the “Counter-Terrorism Financing Act” to prevent crimes committed by international terrorist organizations and amended the “Foundations Act” to assign responsibilities to the government and foundations. In addition, the “International Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act” was amended to institutionalize legal assistance and interactions between Chinese Taipei and Interpol. In addition to laws, Chinese Taipei shall also fully implement AML education with the aim of starting education from the elementary and junior high school level. This will allow students to learn the importance of AML systems, helping the future development of Chinese Taipei and fulfilling the country’s responsibilities to the international community.

         The Premier thanked the evaluators for visiting Chinese Taipei and praised the delegation’s contributions to international order. He also thanked the Minister without Portfolio Ping-Cheng Lo for his supervision, National Security Council Executive Committee Member Tai-San Chiu, Ministry of Justice, Anti-Money Laundering Office, and related agencies for their efforts in the past year. The 37 government agencies and 56 private associations worked together to improve the legal foundation, implement policies, and propose action plans with the aim of achieving success in the evaluation.

        The Anti-Money Laundering Office, Executive Yuan stated that the assessment team for Chinese Taipei included 9 evaluators, which included representatives from the Secretariat of the APG, United States, South Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand and Egypt. The public-sector institutions in the evaluation include 37 agencies such as the Judicial Yuan, Ministry of Justice, Financial Supervisory Commission, Central Bank, Ministry of Economic Affairs, and Ministry of the Interior as well as more than 56 private-sector institutions such as financial institutions and associations of accountants, attorneys, real estate brokers, and accountants and non-profit organizations.

        The Anti-Money Laundering Office stated that the scope of evaluation in the third-round mutual evaluation is far-reaching and includes the legal framework and actual performance results in 11 areas, including money laundering and terrorist financing risks, international cooperation, oversight of AML/CFT operations performed by financial institutions, designated non-financial businesses and professions, competent authorities, and the private sector, information on preventing legal persons and legal arrangements from money laundering and terrorist financing abuses or access to beneficiary rights, ML/TF information acquisition and use, ML offense investigations and prosecution, confiscation of criminal proceeds, investigations and prosecution for TF activities, prevention of terrorist groups’ abuse of non-profit organizations, and prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Premier William Lai delivered a speech.