"This is a great success for Russia and the international community in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing," said FATF President Jochen Sanio. "FATF looks forward to close collaboration with Russia in the on-going fight against money laundering and terrorist financing."

The current list of NCCTs is as follows: Cook Islands; Egypt; Grenada; Guatemala; Indonesia; Myanmar; Nauru; Nigeria; Philippines; St. Vincent and the Grenadines; and Ukraine.

The FATF has also recommended that its members impose counter-measures against Nigeria and the Ukraine on December 15th unless those countries take immediate action to improve their counter money-laundering regimes.

The FATF said it would review again the situation of each NCCT at its next Plenary meeting on 12-14 February 2003.

The FATF also announced that it will collaborate with the IMF and the World Bank on an important initiative in the international fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Said the report: 'The IMF, World Bank and the FATF have developed in recent months a common methodology to assess the countries in the world in compliance with the FATF Recommendations. To this end, this methodology will be used by the FATF, the IMF and the World Bank.'

There had been fears that the FATF would be hobbled by its cooperation with the IMF, which does not like 'naming and shaming' countries and prefers touchy-feely techniques to the hard edged public aggression which has made the FATF so effective over the last three years. It's true that no new names have been added to the NCCT list on this occasion, but in other respects the the FATF report seems normal.

The FATF is an independent international body whose Secretariat is housed at the OECD. The twenty nine member countries and governments of the FATF are: Argentina; Australia; Austria; Belgium; Brazil; Canada; Denmark; Finland; France; Germany; Greece; Hong Kong, China; Iceland; Ireland; Italy; Japan; Luxembourg; Mexico; the Kingdom of the Netherlands; New Zealand; Norway; Portugal; Singapore; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Turkey; United Kingdom and the United States. Two international organisations are also members of the FATF: the European Commission and the Gulf Co-operation Council. South Africa is an observer country.