The week-long plenary meeting was the first to take place since the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) was admitted to associate membership status of the FATF in February 2008.

BVI Attorney General, Kathleen Quartey revealed that only five out of the more than 30 member countries of the CFATF were allowed to join the CFATF Secretariat at the meeting.

"The participation by the BVI demonstrates the Territory's commitment to maintaining an internationally robust legal and regulatory regime for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism," the Attorney General noted, according to the BVI Government Information Service.

Quartey added that a closer relationship between the FATF and its Caribbean counterparts should greatly benefit the CFATF, by bringing the region's issues and perspectives directly to the centre stage.

The FATF was established in 1989 by the G-7 which is the group of leading industrialised nations. Its mission is to prevent criminals from using the international financial systems.

The CFATF was formed in 1992. It is an organisation of more than 30 states of the Caribbean Basin, which have agreed to implement common counter-measures to address the problem of criminal money laundering.

At the conclusion of last week's London plenary, the FATF announced that it had taken a number of new steps to protect the international financial system from abuse.

These included the reaffirmation of its February 2008 public statement regarding money laundering and terrorist financing risks posed by Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Sao Tome and Principe, and the northern part of Cyprus.

The FATF also discussed and adopted four mutual evaluation reports, assessing compliance with its 40+9 recommendations in Hong Kong, the Russian Federation, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.