The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia emphasizes that it pays great attention to fighting financial crimes in general and money laundering crimes, terrorism financing and proliferation of weapons in particular. The Kingdom is committed to find all advanced means and professional methods for fighting these crimes and to continuously work on providing the required capabilities in order to develop the work mechanism of competent authorities in the Kingdom, aiming at improving its legislative, institutional and professional systems related to countering money laundering, terrorist financing and Proliferation of weapons to be in line with the international standards and requirements of FATF and international best practices in this regard.
This came in a speech delivered by the Vice-Chairman of the Anti-Money Laundering Permanent Committee (AMLPC) in the Kingdom, Mr. Adel Bin Hamad Al-Qulish during a Workshop on "Financial Intelligence in Money Laundering Investigations and Prosecutions" organized by the Committee, in cooperation with The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in Riyadh yesterday. Al-Qulish thanked IMF for its cooperation with the Committee in organizing this event. Al-Qulish extended his thanks to all other participants from the entities concerned and the AMLPC members as well.
Al-Qulish pointed out that the Kingdom has stressed the important roles handled by competent authorities to combat ML/TF through comprehensive compliance with relevant regulations, standards and instructions , besides to implementation of policies and procedures, in addition to promoting the risks-based approach which aims at understanding threats,vulnerabilities and means of handling them to be more effective in detecting, preventing, monitoring operations and reporting suspicious activities.
Al-Qulish pointed out the approval of the Councils of Ministers to adopt the National Strategic Objectives for fighting money laundering and terrorism financing, and a National Plan to achieve these objectives. Mr. Al-Qulish emphasized on the fact that this constitutes a clear message and evidence indicating the Kingdom's keenness to develop policies and procedures of the entities concerned. Besides to improving their mechanisms and introduce integrated work mechanisms, and enhance the inter-entities relationships in a way that serves their technical and operational aspects.
The Vice-Chairman states that the Kingdom has recently undergone a mutual evaluation conducted by experts from FATF and the MENAFATF to assess the regulations, procedures and efforts exerted in the field of combating money laundering, terrorism financing and the proliferation of weapons. The Kingdom achieved positive results in that process. Mr. Al-Qulish added that the Kingdom's initiative in supporting and establishing the Technical Assistance Fund for AML/CFT programs under IMF's umbrella was based on its belief in the importance and vital role of IMF; and it is an extension of the local, regional and international efforts exerted by the Kingdom in combating money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation of weapons. The initiative also confirms the Kingdom's keenness to support the international community's efforts exerted in AML/CFT and Anti-Proliferation of weapons.