Maurice is no longer on the European Union’s blacklist of financial jurisdictions, as Finance Minister Renganaden Padayachy announced on his official Facebook page on Wednesday.
“With the confirmation of Maurice’s removal from the EU’s black list of AML/CFT, the year 2022 begins under very good conditions for the financial sector,” said the minister.
While admitting that “the fight against human trafficking and terrorist financing remains high on the government’s agenda,” the minister emphasized that it is “a collective success ushered in by the Prime Minister’s leadership.”
This decision by the European Council and Parliament comes over three months after the tourist island off the coast of India was added to the grey list of The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on October 21.
In October 2020, the European Commission added the island of Maurice to its blacklist of tax havens.
According to the Commission’s findings, Mauritius, along with Ghana, the Bahamas, and Iraq, has no weaknesses in its AML/CFT strategies.
In addition, the European Commission welcomes the efforts of the Mauritian government to improve the effectiveness of the AML/CFT regime. In the Commission’s view, these measures are sufficiently comprehensive to eliminate the irregularities identified under Article 9 of the EU Directive against Mauritius.
Recall that the European Commission had already decided to remove Mauritius from the blacklist in December 2021, but needed the approval of the European Parliament for this to become official.
The new black list was sent to the European Council and Parliament on January 7, 2022. “The most recent procedure concerns the European Parliament’s ratification of the new list,” Mahen Seeruttun, the Minister of Financial Services, explained.
We remain available to provide any further information on the subject or on the enabling ecosystem that Mauritius has for structuring cross-border investment and trade in the region.
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