Past week the Panamanian delegation represented by Minister of Economy and Finance, Dulcidio De La Guardia, met with his French counterpart, Michel Sapin in Paris.
The Plenary Assembly of the Group of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) agreed to remove Panama from the gray list of the countries contributing to the money laundering, terrorist financing and funding weapons of mass destruction. The Assembly admitted that Panama has taken necessary step to comply with international requirements in this area.
Later the President of the Republic of Panama, Juan Carlos Varela, wrote about the decision of the agencies in his Twitter.
“I am pleased to announce that Panama left the FATF gray list after we entered new era of transparency, which we live now”, wrote Varela.
The process of leaving the gray list took Panama about a year and a half of consecutive steps during which the government implemented the action plan designed in cooperation with the FATF. This included passing laws to immobilize bearer shares for corporations and providing certainty about their final beneficiaries, and also other new rules in order to prevent money laundering, financing terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. Now agencies are obligated to know the customer and inform authorities about any suspicious activity.
