The participating officials included head of Parliamentary standing committee on security and foreign policy, Deputy Minister of Justice, Director of Intelligence Agency, General Auditor of Mongolia, Heads of Police Department and Tax Authority, First Deputy Governor, Deputy Head of Customs Authority, officials from the Financial Regulatory Commission and central bank and others.

An annual meeting of the FATF and Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), intergovernmental body for the Asia Pacific region, was organized in Bangkok, Thailand on September 12 and 13. Relevant agencies from Mongolia delivered a report on actions taken against money laundering and terror financing for discussion at this meeting. However, while welcoming the steps that Mongolia has taken to improve its technical compliance with the FATF recommendations for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures for Mongolia, the APG has officially delivered ratings of Mongolia’s implementations on those recommendations, noting that insufficient progress has been made to justify re-rating of four recommendations, which are as follows:

1. To improve the activities of the investigative authorities on proliferation of weapons of mass destructions and money laundering;

2. To increase the number of cases on money laundering that reached settlements in courts following investigation and prosecution and produce results;

3. To enhance property confiscation measures regarding the terror financing

4. To improve preventive measures on financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The implementations are due for assessment by May 2021 or in 18 months of period and on October 15, the FATF is set to hold discussion on the measures being carried out by Mongolia. The meeting headed by the Parliament Speaker concluded that relevant Mongolian authorities, such as Bank of Mongolia and Financial Regulatory Commission other organizations should bear responsibilities for unsatisfactory reports on the country’s measures addressing money laundering and terror financing.

Concerning the possibility of Mongolia being placed on the Grey List, the Speaker assigned relevant officials to make efforts for approval of the bill on combating proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terror financing, examine the Law on economic transparency, reinforce the works to fight illegal acts of government officials and corrupt civil servants.