UAE to be Removed from FATF Gray List in 2024

The UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade and chairman of the Emirates Bullion Committee hope the Financial Action Task Force will remove the country from the increased risk monitoring regime, which will assist in attracting significant investors and precious metal companies. 

The UAE Foreign Trade minister, Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, stated that the country will be removed from the FATF gray list next year, which will create a positive global image and attract various international investors. He stated at the Dubai Precious Metal Conference that FATF would visit the country later this year to evaluate the AML system of the financial institutions and businesses. The minister stated during the speech, “we are doing an excellent job on FATF. We are almost done. We are just waiting for the visit before the end of the year. Hopefully, we will be removed from the gray list. So we are looking forward to more industry people, corporations, and companies to come and operate and work from the UAE.”

The UAE was added to the gray list on March 22nd, and from then, they have taken numerous regulatory steps to enhance the country’s financial security and AML/CTF regulatory regime. In October, the FATF stated that the UAE had significantly strengthened its compliance with the requirements to be taken from the nations under a special surveillance list. These included enforcing stricter laws against financial institutions that fail to comply, expediting money-laundering investigations, and stepping up prosecutions. In order to ensure that these adjustments would remain in place, the task force announced that it would visit the location.

Precious metals and individual gold are the backbone of the UAE’s largest non-oil trading economy. With a quarter of the country’s Dh1.24 trillion non-oil commerce in the first half of the year, the United Arab Emirates is the world’s third-biggest gold trade hub. He stressed the country would sign more contract with other countries, such as Africa and South America, after getting out of the gray list. The minister stated, “we are also revamping the whole gold and precious metal market. We are doing new studies on the market.”

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