As a member of the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), the Macao Special Administrative Region (Macao SAR) is required to continuously update its overall money laundering/terrorist financing/proliferation financing risk assessment to comply with the requirements of international standards. The latest round of risk assessment was successfully completed with the joint efforts of all parties, especially the coordination of the competent authorities and the active participation of various sectors in providing data. In order to enable the sectors to further understand the analysis and result of this round of risk assessment, in addition to the distribution of the latest "Macao Special Administrative Region Risk Assessment Report on Money Laundering/Terrorist Financing/Financing of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction" to the sectors by the supervisory agencies, the Financial Intelligence Office (GIF) of the Unitary Police Service, being the coordinating agency of the project, continued to cooperate with supervisory agencies to organize thematic explanatory sessions on the report for different sectors, providing opportunities for interactive communication which enhance the sectors’ awareness and understanding of the importance of risk assessment projects.
The outreach on the risk assessment report to the sectors has officially been kicked off in early 2024. After having organized explanatory sessions for the financial and gaming sectors on 28 February and 19 March, 2024 respectively, GIF continued to organize explanatory sessions for other Designated Non-Financial Business or Profession (DNFBP) sectors in the 2nd quarter. Different sessions were arranged in sequence for the dealers of goods of high unit value sector on 12 April, for the auction sector and company service providers on 15 April, and for the accounting professionals on April 24, with a total of around 170 participants. The agendas of the explanatory sessions mainly included risk assessment methodology, threat of money laundering related crimes, risk situation of various sectors, main findings and sector questionnaire results, and the requirements of Law no. 6/2016 “Asset Freezing Regime” and the obligations of the sectors were also introduced.
GIF will continue to arrange explanatory sessions for the remaining sectors on 3 May and 28 May 2024 respectively for practicing lawyers and notaries, and the real estate intermediary sector.
