ASEAN finance chiefs mull ways to halt terrorist funding

ASEAN finance chiefs mull ways to halt terrorist funding

Associated Press, Manila

Southeast Asian finance chiefs said Wednesday they will
discuss how to tighten financial controls to detect and halt the
flow of funds to terrorists amid continuing attacks in the
region.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations finance ministers,
attending a two-day annual meeting in Manila, were to report on
progress their governments have in identifying such funds, which
remain largely undetected, officials said.

"No one knows for sure what is the kind of terrorist-related
money that we have in our banking system," ASEAN Secretary-
general Ong Keng Yong told reporters.

Although ASEAN's 10 members have agreed to cooperate to track
money intended for terrorists, financial controls have to be
improved for better detection, he said.

Last year, ASEAN and other Asian and Western nations agreed to
a broad range of steps to undermine terrorist financing,
including establishment of financial intelligence units to
monitor suspicious funds and the freezing of suspected terrorist
assets.

"As time goes on, we have to look at other areas as well and
continue to tighten it. We're not complacent," said Lim Hng
Kiang, Singapore's second minister for finance.

Philippine Finance Secretary Isidro Camacho said he would
report on Manila's efforts to battle money laundering as part of
its anti-terrorism campaign. The Philippines passed an anti-money
laundering law in 2001, then strengthened it this year to avoid
sanctions by an international financial watchdog.

Security concerns at the ASEAN meetings - primarily devoted to
discussions on how to better integrate Southeast Asia's economies
- were heightened by a car bomb attack Tuesday that killed up to
14 and injured nearly 150 in Jakarta.

The ASEAN meetings are being held under heavy security at an
upscale hotel just across the road from a shopping center that
was seized by more than 300 Filipino officers and soldiers last
week in a failed mutiny that the government said was aimed at
toppling President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Camacho said the meetings opened with the ministers expressing
their sympathies to Indonesia during a closed-door session.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.