About the 5th EAG Plenary meeting

The Working group meetings and the 5th Plenary meeting of the Eurasian group on combating money laundering and financing of terrorism (EAG) took place on December 14-15, 2006 in Moscow(Russia).

The Working group meetings and the 5th EAG Plenary meeting took place on December 14-15, 2006 with the participation of EAG member-states (Belarus, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) as well as observer countries and organizations (FATF, World Bank, IMF, CSTO, Council of Europe, EurAsEC, SCO, UNODC, Armenia, France, Great Britain, Moldova, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, Japan).
The elections for another 2 year term were held for the post of EAG Chairman and Deputy chairman, as well as the co-chairs of the EAG Working groups. The mandates of the Working groups have been renewed as well for a 2 year period. The Legal working group has been transformed into the Working group on mutual evaluations and legal issues, while the functions of the Working group on typologies and Working group on technical assistance have remained unchanged. 

The Head of Rosfinmonitoring Mr. Zubkov has been reelected to the post of EAG Chairman and Ms. T. Kalimbetova - the acting Chairwoman of the Kyrgyz Financial Intelligence Service has been elected as his Deputy.

The member-states discussed observership requests of the OSCE and Lithuania and unanimously agreed to grant them observer status. 

The participants of the Plenary meeting heard and discussed progress on the planned mutual evaluation (ME) of Kyrgyzstan and on-going ME of China conducted by the FATF with participation of the EAG. The mutual evaluation procedures have been discussed and adopted and the Schedule of EAG mutual evaluations has been updated. 

The member-states have also informed the Plenary meeting on progress in adopting AML/CFT legislation and the creation of FIUs. It has been noted that in the period since the last Plenary meeting the basic AML/CFT laws have been adopted by China and Kyrgyzstan. 

The discussion also focused on issues relating to the effectiveness of international cooperation and EAG cooperation with international and regional organizations on issues relating to links between corruption and money-laundering. Areas of cooperation with the FATF International Cooperation Review Group and the tour de table mechanism have been determined. Issues of private sector dialogue have also been discussed. 

The results of typologies research in 2007 have been approved and the research topics for 2007 have been set. A report will be prepared resulting from the joint FATF/EAG typologies meeting, which took place in Shanghai, China on November 28-30, 2006. This report is planned for approval at the FATF Plenary in June 2007 and EAG Plenary in July 2007. 

The Plenary meeting discussed the information on the results of work of the second Conference of EAG donors states and organizations, which took place on December 13, 2006 in Moscow. The effectiveness of on-going technical assistance was discussed. Taking into account the future TA needs additional activities are planned, with participation of the International Training and Methodology Centre for Financial Monitoring.

The Plenary discussed and agreed on a number of other issues connected with the activities of the EAG.

The next EAG Plenary meeting is scheduled to take place in July 2007.