Republic of Mauritius- Mauritius committed to exit the High Risk Third Countries list, states Minister Seeruttun

The Minister of Financial Services and Good
Governance, Mr Mahen Seeruttun, made this statement, this morning, at the
National Assembly in reply to a Private Notice Question pertaining to the inclusion of
Mauritius in the list of High Risk Third Countries issued by the European
Commission.

Minister Seeruttun highlighted that the EU listing is a direct
consequence of the listing of Mauritius by the FATF on its list of
“Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring”. 
However, the FATF did not call for application of enhanced due diligence
to be applied to jurisdictions on the list and the EU’s decision to go beyond
the FATF decision is therefore unclear, he pointed out.

This matter, underlined the Minister, has been given highest level of
priority by Government and a dialogue is to be initiated with the EU
Commission, through a teleconference with a technical team from Mauritius on 13
May 2020. In addition, he mentioned that under the FATF action plan, Mauritius
has to demonstrate an increased level of effectiveness of its Anti-Money
Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) systems. To this
end, four factors, namely political commitment, national coordination,
additional human and other resources are all being addressed.

Moreover, stated the Minister, Mauritius has obtained technical
assistance from the EU funded AML/CFT Global Facility and the German
Government, through the German Development Agency, to support the
implementation of the FATF action plan.  He also pointed out that, even
during the sanitary curfew, Mauritius has continued to work extensively with
the technical assistance providers.

Government Information Service, Prime
Minister’s Office, Level 6, New Government Centre, Port Louis, Mauritius.
Email: gis@govmu.org  Website: http://gis.govmu.org  Mobile App: Search Gov​