Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) want to boost cooperation on information related to money laundering and terrorism financing, said Ahmed Khalil, the chairman of the Egyptian Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Combating Unit (EMLCU).
Khalil hailed the partnership with the UAE in combating money laundering and terrorism financing in a meeting on Monday with Hamed Al-Zaabi, director-general of the Emirati Executive Office of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism.
He noted that cooperation between Egypt and the UAE in money laundering and terrorism financing includes exchanging expertise by holding conferences, training programs, and workshops.
The official affirmed Egypt’s keenness to extend cooperation with the UAE to exchange information and expertise regarding mutual evaluation conducted in accordance with the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) compliance assessment methodology.
Egypt’s EMLCU and the UAE’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) signed an MoU in 2017 to enhance cooperation, Khalil said, noting that the Emirati unit has been one of the top three financial intelligence units to which the Egyptian unit sends requests for cooperation since 2015.
The EMLCU is exerting great efforts to develop the Egyptian system of combating money laundering and terrorist financing, and the spread of arms, Khalil said.
Egypt and the UAE are members of the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force tasked with ensuring the implementation of international recommendations on combating money laundering, the financing of terrorism, and proliferation.
The EMLCU is an independent unit at the Central Bank of Egypt that was established in 2003 under the money laundering law.
Source: Al-Ahram Online
