Lebanon should be removed from the OECD's blacklist of suspected money launderers in June, the secretary general of the Association of Lebanese Banks, Makram Sader, said Friday, February 2.
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development's financial action task force on money laundering (FATF) said Thursday that none of the 15 countries listed as "non-cooperative" in its anti-money laundering campaign had been removed from the list, despite "impressive strides" taken by some toward transparence.
Sader said Lebanon's continued presence on the list was not due to the existence of money laundering operations, but to the absence of legislation required by the FATF. He said a bill to implement all the required legislative reforms would be examined by parliament immediately after the 2001 budget is approved and that Lebanon would be removed from the blacklist in June, during the FATF's next plenary session.
Central bank Chairman Riyad Salameh confirmed that his country would soon conform to the international norm, and said the appropriate measures will be applied as soon as the new regulation is published by the bank and the administrative set-up is adapted. —(AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
