Action Plan on Combating the Financing of Terrorism

We, the APEC economies, subject to our respective domestic institutional arrangements, will freeze the assets of terrorists and their supporters without delay, and prevent them from accessing the international financial system. Each economy is encouraged to fully implement current laws on freezing terrorist assets and to ensure compliance and consistent reporting and to continue to improve its laws on freezing the assets of terrorists to ensure that no funds escape its financial system.

We call for enhanced cooperation on designations of targets of regional interest. APEC economies will cooperate to identify and freeze the assets of terrorists and terrorist supporters.

Each APEC economy will continue to implement as soon as possible the relevant United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolutions, particularly UNSCR 1373 and 1390, as well as the UN Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and to report to the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee on all progress made on these initiatives.

We encourage all APEC economies to implement the FATF's Special Eight Recommendations on terrorist financing and respond to the FATF Self-Assessment Questionnaire. We support the work of FATF in this area, in particular to the development of guidance notes on the implementation of the Special Eight Recommendations.

We welcome the important recent decisions by the IMF and the World Bank to undertake comprehensive assessments of economies' adherence to the FATF 40 + 8 recommendations on fighting money laundering and terrorist financing, consistent with their respective mandates. We welcome the program of the IMF and the World Bank to begin conducting integrated and comprehensive assessments of efforts to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism, in consideration of the specific situation of each member.

We recognize that hawala and other alternative remittance systems provide a valuable service in some areas, but remain concerned that they not be misused by terrorists and their supporters. We call upon our officials, in consultation with the IMF and the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), to identify and report back to us on the economic, structural and regulatory factors in the formal financial sector that encourage the use of alternative remittance systems.

We welcome the recommendations developed by one of the regional FATF-style bodies on alternative remittance systems and underground banking systems. We call upon this group to develop best practices on alternative remittance systems.

We support the efforts to combat the financing of terrorism shown in the Abu Dhabi Declaration on hawala issued May 16, and support regulating and monitoring hawala to ensure that terrorists and their followers do not abuse them.

We will undertake to protect non-profit organizations and well-meaning donors from having their funds misused to support terrorists. We encourage FATF to develop best practices for preventing the abuse of charitable institutions by terrorists.

Each APEC economy commits to criminalizing the financing of terrorism, as called for under the UN Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. This includes the willful provision and collection of funds, directly or indirectly, with the intention or knowledge of the intention to use those funds to carry out terrorist acts.

Each APEC economy will increase its efforts to investigate and prosecute money launderers and terrorist financiers. We will work cooperatively to improve our ability to detect and target bulk cash movements that facilitate money laundering and terrorist financing, and to utilize cross-border cash laws, and commit to enhanced coordination.

Each economy will establish a financial intelligence unit (FIU) or its equivalent as soon as possible in accordance with relevant international standards and take steps to enhance information sharing with other FIUs.

We welcome FATF's efforts to identify economies worldwide for follow-up assessment and technical assistance. We call on the IMF and the MDBs, in consultation with the United Nations, to provide such assistance, in coordination with regional FATF-style bodies and donor nations, to avoid duplication.

We call on regional financial institutions to become more involved in regional initiatives on terrorist financing and to provide technical assistance to improve economies' legal abilities to prevent the funding of terrorism.

We commit to collaborate in the provision of technical assistance to economies worldwide that need help in developing and implementing necessary policies, laws, regulations, and institutions to combat terrorist financing and money laundering.

We fully support private sector initiatives such as the Wolfsberg Statement on the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and endorse cooperation between financial institutions and governments. The fight against the financing of terrorism requires the active participation of both financial intermediaries and the public sector. We urge financial supervisors and regulators around the world to continue to ensure their financial sectors are not abused by terrorists. In this context, we will intensify our efforts to deprive terrorist financiers access to our financial system by ensuring the ability of financial institutions to identify their customers. We attach importance to the need to improve practices and transaction for effective customer identification. To this end, we call on FATF to continue its work to enhance the 40 Recommendations in this area.

We recognize that continued success in the fight against terrorist financing requires the close cooperation and commitment of the broad international community. We call upon regional and multilateral bodies, including Association of South East Asian Nations Regional Forum and the Pacific Islands Forum, to endorse this Action Plan and commit their own members to improving their efforts to fight terrorist financing. We therefore encourage all economies worldwide to join us in taking these measures.