On 12 March 2013, President of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) submitted a letter to the Minister of Justice informing that Thailand has been removed from its public statement categorising the country as a jurisdiction with insufficient progress in addressing the deficiencies of its Anti Money Laundering/Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Strategy. Publication of the FATF public statement aims to caution its Member States to increase their scrutiny in engaging in financial transactions originating from or flowing to country listed therein. The removal of Thailand from the FATF public statement resulted from the country significant progress in complying with FATF’s recommendations, specifically by enacting the Anti-Money Laundering Act (No. 4) B.E. 2556 (2013) and the Counter Terrorism Financing Act B.E. 2556 (2013), both of which recently came into force on 2 February 2013.

FATF experts will once again visit Thailand in May 2013 to confirm whether the country has strictly and concretely addressed its deficiencies and complied with FATF’s recommendations. If the experts find that Thailand has not made satisfactory progress on the matter, they may recommend that the country be relisted on the FATF public statement. Thailand is therefore highly committed to continuously tackling other existing deficiencies.