Support for Kazakhstan in establishing a beneficial ownership register

Promoting transparency and action against economic crime

Over the recent years the countries of Central Asia have pursued reforms designed to prevent and punish corrupt practices in order to improve business climate in the region and promote sustainable economic development for the benefit of all. The present Action aims to contribute to improving the conditions for businesses and to enhancing the quality of anti-corruption systems across the region. The Action comprises two components: 1) Business integrity and compliance; 2) Anti-corruption, anti-money laundering and asset recovery systems.

Business integrity and compliance

Enhancing transparency, business integrity and the protection of rights of entrepreneurs is one of the priorities of the countries of the Central Asian region. The current Action focuses on establishing mechanisms and enhancing capacities to address extortion and solicitation from businesses, reducing administrative barriers and enhancing compliance across the business sector. On the regional level, the aim of the intervention is to establish effective mechanisms for sharing good practices and to contribute to developing a clearer understanding of the common regional and cross-border corruption risks facing the business sector. On the national level, the Action focuses on the specific priorities of the respective countries in the abovementioned thematic areas and seeks to provide tailor-made assistance to reforms.

Anti-corruption, anti-money laundering and asset recovery systems

Work in this area concentrates on improving mechanisms and capacities of authorities, including law enforcement, to prevent and tackle corruption, money laundering and economic crime as well as on strengthening national systems to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. The regional dimension of the component includes conducting studies on corruption and economic crime focusing on specific regional risks and threats, and regional cascade training programmes for law enforcement personnel and civil service staff. The national dimension focuses on the specific needs and demand, depending on the national contexts and reform processes.

News

Back Support for Kazakhstan in establishing a beneficial ownership register

Council of Europe is currently supporting the Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) in the preparation of a roadmap for the establishment of a Beneficial Ownership (BO) Register in Kazakhstan. As a first step, a scoping mission took place in Astana on 20-21 April 2023 to present international best practices and models of BO registers, as well as to discuss the existing practice in Kazakhstan with the representatives of FMA and the Ministry of Justice.

The BO transparency is an important tool in fighting against money laundering and terrorist financing and the support of the Council of Europe aims at improving the practices of the national authorities of Kazakhstan to successfully implement the beneficial ownership registry for the needs of the economic crime investigations. During the meetings the international experts presented the best practices of BO registers in different countries to 19 representatives of FMA and Ministry of Justice who learned the challenges in the establishment of BO register in other jurisdictions.

Kazakhstan is undergoing an evaluation process on compliance and effectiveness of the national anti-money laundering system with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and other international standards.

This activity was organised by the Action on “Promoting Transparency and Action against Economic Crime” of the Central Asia Rule of Law Programme 2020-2023, a joint initiative co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.

ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN 20-21 APRIL 2023