BEIJING, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- The People's Bank of
China (PBOC), the central bank, said on Wednesday it would draw up regulations
to strictly enforce the country's anti-money laundering law "as soon as
possible".
The bank would soon issue a series of regulations to
combat money laundering in securities, futures and insurance sectors, said Chen
Xiaoyun, an official with the PBOC.
The law would help China's accession to the world's
money policing agency, the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering
(FATF), said Liu Lianke, an official with the PBOC's anti-money laundering
bureau, adding that China is likely to join the inter-governmental organization
in June 2007.
The law, approved on Tuesday by the Standing
Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top
legislature, will come into effect on Jan. 1 next year.
The PBOC launched its anti-money laundering campaign
in 2003, and established an anti-money laundering bureau and a monitoring and
analysis center.
By the end of 2005, all the country's commercial
banks, 90 percent of the urban credit cooperatives and foreign banks, and
50percent of the rural credit unions had access to the monitoring and analysis
network.
According to the China Anti-Money Laundering
Monitoring and Analysis Center, 683 suspicious cases had been reported to the
police by the end of 2005, involving 137.8 billion yuan (17.2 billion U.S.
dollars) and more than one billion U.S. dollars.
The FATF was established at the G-7 Summit in Paris
in 1989, in response to mounting concern over money laundering. It has 33
members and China became an observer in 2005.