by Su Myat Sandy
YANGON, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar is seeking international cooperation to combat transnational money laundering cases, intending to sign agreements with more countries including Japan and the United Kingdom on the move.
Myanmar has already initiated memorandums of understanding (MoU) with seven nations to exchange information of transnational money laundering and to prevent both inflows and outflows of black money.
Myanmar is not a member of the Egmont Group, an alliance of 139 Financial Intelligence Units around the world formed in 1995.
The Egmont Group is to provide a forum for FIUs around the world to improve cooperation in the fight against money laundering and the financial support for terrorism, and to foster the implementation of domestic programs in this field.
Myanmar is also seeking expertise and technical aids from international organizations including International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB)to fight against money laundering and exchange information on financial intelligence relating to money laundering.
Experts from the international monetary organizations are expected to arrive in Myanmar next month to help deal with the issue.
Meanwhile, Myanmar authorities are moving on its process in combating money laundering cases through pilot projects to collect data on money laundering sectors nationwide.
In a bid to monitor money laundering cases and to formulate policies on anti-money laundering, a 15-member Anti-Money Laundering Central Board has been set up, chaired by the Minister of Home Affairs with the Police Chief as the secretary.
According to disclosure, over 70 money laundering cases were exposed in 12 years from 2003 to present, amounting to nearly 200 million U.S. dollars mostly from drug related cases.
Myanmar enacted the new Anti-Money Laundering Law in March this year.
Myanmar has so far cooperated with Thailand, Indonesia and Australia in combating money laundering and financial terrorism.
In 2006, Myanmar became the member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG).
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