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 Director of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Unit, Samya Abou Sharif, said that Jordan has put in place a holistic national plan to be implemented by 20 relevant authorities, including the supervisory bodies of the financial, non-financial, security and judicial sectors, to enhance the systems for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) announced Thursday that Jordan has been included in a list of countries subject to "Increased Monitoring" (gray lists), after it handed over to the Kingdom an action plan approved by the National Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Committee for the purpose of addressing specific deficiencies in the country's anti-money laundering and terrorist financing and anti-WMD proliferation regimes.

The implementation of this plan is linked to periods extending to a maximum of two years, and in the event that all the terms of the plan are implemented, the committee will consider removing Jordan from that list.

In this regard, Abou Sharif said that the committee’s move to include Jordan on the Increased Monitoring list was prompted by the results of a mutual evaluation that the Kingdom underwent to assess AML/CFT/WMD regimes, the results of which were published at the end of 2019.

She indicated that a comprehensive national plan had been drawn up to be implemented by the relevant authorities, which numbered 20, including financial and non-financial regulatory agencies and security services and judicial authorities.

Taskforces and committees specialized in following up the implementation were also formed, and several reform steps were completed during this period, the most important of which is the completion of a national assessment of the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing.

She noted that a new draft law to combat money laundering and terrorist financing was presented to the government at the beginning of 2020, and the draft law was approved by the government and sent to Parliament in March 2020.

However, due to the Corona pandemic, which delayed the issuance of the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Law until September of this year, and other shortcomings that require a period of time to be fixed, FATF decided to reflect the remaining procedures on the items of the action plan delivered to the Kingdom by the taskforce.

It should be noted that the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Law, which entered into force in mid-September of this year, addressed many shortcomings related to the legislative aspect and was consistent with international standards in the field of combating money laundering, terrorist financing and financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.