Long abstract

In December 2004, the FATF President headed a high level mission to China for the purpose of considering whether it met all of the requirements for observership. The outcome of the mission was successful. The FATF decided to grant observer status to the People’s Republic of China in January 2005 and welcomed delegates from China at the February 2005 Plenary meeting in Paris. China’s observer status is an important step toward its ultimately becoming a full FATF member. The final
membership requirement is that China undergo an FATF mutual evaluation in which it demonstrates satisfactory compliance with key FATF Recommendations relating to the criminalisation of money laundering and terrorist financing (Recommendation 1 and Special Recommendation II), customer identification and due diligence (Recommendation 5), record keeping (Recommendation 10) and suspicious transaction reporting (Recommendation 13 and Special Recommendation IV). The date for China’s mutual evaluation has not yet been set.