Reforms boosted in financial crime war

China will further beef up its fight against money laundering, funding for terrorism and tax evasion as the central government calls for intensified supervision efforts to ensure the implementation of reforms.

The three areas were highlights of the 34th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform on Tuesday. The meeting was attended by President Xi Jinping, who heads the group.

The meeting reviewed and passed a guideline that aims to strengthen the country's preventive measures in the three areas, according to a statement later released.

It will seek to establish a supervision system and structure to fight the three illegal activities through the use of financial intelligence and monitoring and data sharing, the statement said.

The group, which has been holding meetings on deepening reforms in many areas, also said supervision efforts must be improved to ensure that the reforms will be correctly implemented. It called on government departments and local authorities to devote more effort to improve and revise efforts to supervise reforms.

The group also reviewed and passed seven other guidelines, among them policies that aim to spur and protect entrepreneurship, establish a modern hospital management system and cultivate new rural management entities.

The guidelines also included ensuring that illegal evidence is barred judicial procedures, while urging authorities to step up the prevention of confessions extracted by torture.

The guideline also provides instructions to public security departments, prosecutors and court officials on ways to screen out evidence that is collected illegally.

It also clarifies the duties of each judicial organ during the investigative process to eradicate illegal evidence, in order to prevent wrongful prosecutions and convictions.

xuwei@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA?04/19/2017 page1)