Sri Lanka on European Commission’s Money Laundering Blacklist

COLOMBO (News1st) - Sri Lanka has been added to the European Commission’s 'Money Laundering Blacklist'.

Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Trinidad and Tobago are newest inclusions to the European Commission’s list of non-EU countries, considered to have strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and terrorism financing regimes. The other countries in the  black list are Uganda, Afghanistan, People's Democratic Republic of Lao and Guyana. Prime Minister of Tunisia Youssef Chahed has sacked the Governor of the country's Central Bank, Chedly Ayari. Meanwhile, the Inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has recently listed Sri Lanka among eleven ‘high risk and monitored jurisdictions’ that have taken insufficient measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other threats to the international financial system. The other countries are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria, Trinidad, Tobago, Tunisia, Vanuatu and Yemen. Below is what the Former Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Chandra Jayaratne said: "In these dealings if we do not meet up to the required standards, we will be penalised. And these penalties could impact upon the country's sovereign rating as well as the country's banking systems' ability to trade and transact international finances. It is important that all stake holders, the banking sector, and the other private sector as fellow professionals play their due role in making sure that Sri Lanka is a country that is compliant with the standards".