On behalf of the State Financial Monitoring Service (SFMS) and myself, I would like to express my gratitude to the project «Strengthening measures to counter money laundering and financing of terrorism in Ukraine» under the European Union/Council of Europe Partnership for Good Governance (PGG) programme for supporting the development of an effective anti-money laundering/counter terrorist financing (AML/CFT) system.

As part of the project implementation, the SFMS received support from the Council of Europe colleagues during an expert assessment of the new sectorial Law in the AML/CFT area when it was considered by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The Law № 361 was adopted by the Parliament on 6 December 2019. It entered into force on 28 April 2020. And currently there is an active phase of its implementation through the adoption of a number of relevant by-laws.

During the implementation of the new AML Law, the SFMS is working with other stakeholders, in particular on the establishment of a mechanism for the functioning of a comprehensive administrative reporting system in the area of AML/CFT. In this aspect, we are grateful to the project for its support to provide a Technical Paper on the results of the review of statistical indicators which are planned to be introduced and further used by national authorities.

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is also an active participant in the process of creating an effective mechanism for verification of information on ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) in Ukraine. In this context, we appreciate the expert's assessment as a result of the analysis of the Concept of the mechanism for verifying the accuracy of UBO information, which is contained in the Unified state register of legal entities, private entrepreneurs and public organisations.

In addition, the SFMS initiated and is currently leading an ambitious project to create a Methodological Manual on Financial Investigations, as one of the key documents that will be used by all relevant units of appropriate law enforcement and intelligence agencies of Ukraine in their daily work. We are pleased that the project has joined this important component of our work and supported it with an expert evaluation of the draft manual.

It is also impossible to ignore the day-to-day operational activities of the SFMS, namely the work of the respectful unit of analytical investigations. In order to carry out their work effectively, our staff members are constantly learning new techniques, methods, tools used by criminals for AML/CFT and we are very grateful to the project for the opportunity to obtain such information through the organisation of five targeted trainings and training activities.

Summarising all the above, I would like to once again express my appreciation to the project for the support provided, as well as the hope that our joint activities will not stop there, but continue to effectively implement with a view to strengthen the AML/CFT system in Ukraine.