Minister of Interior Sar Kheng said the government will put in place measures to uphold the rules of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to prevent Cambodia from backsliding onto the organisation’s grey list or black list after the Kingdom was officially removed from its “Money Laundering Grey List” on February 24.
Sar Kheng said the removal of Cambodia from the FATF grey list was another success on par in importance with its hosting of the 40th and 41st ASEAN summits and 43rd ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) in 2022.
“So, we will summarise, experiment and put in place some measures to better protect the FATF’s ruling in the future. It doesn’t mean that we have now succeeded so we will become careless and possibly backslide onto the grey or black list,” he said during a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the National University of Chea Sim Kamchaymear on February 25 in Prey Veng province.
He added that the government is also putting more effort into a related campaign to improve Cambodia’s rating in the US Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, which he said is also a complicated issue.
“We could not leave the situation like that because it would affect our development and investment, especially foreign investments … It was really difficult [to be grey-listed] and [investors] seemed unhappy and not warm to putting their investment capital into Cambodia. So, the situation wasn’t good. Therefore, we are all proud [to be off the grey list] and we will continue to work on this issue together,” he said.