As per a report, Mauritius has exited EU black list along with The Bahamas, Botswana, Ghana and Iraq. With this exit, Mauritius will regain its status as the financial centre in the Indian Ocean Region. It is to be noted that Mauritius was recently removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “Grey List” in October 2021.
The European Commission in the report acknowledged significant measures taken by Mauritius in improving its AML/CFT regime. Along with Botswana and Ghana, the commission also said that Mauritius had established the legal and regulatory framework to meet the commitments in their action plans regarding the strategic deficiencies that the FATF had identified. The report pointed that these measures were sufficiently comprehensive and met the necessary requirements to consider that strategic deficiencies identified under article 9 of the Directive (EU) 2015/849 had been removed.
In February 2020, Mauritius was placed on the FATF’s ‘grey list’ of jurisdictions subject to increased monitoring. The EU blacklisting was a direct consequence. On 7 May 2020, the EU included Mauritius (along with 11 other countries) on its revised list of high-risk countries that have ‘strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing frameworks’ (AML-CFT Framework). The EU blacklist became applicable on 1 October 2020.
The exiting of Mauritius from EU’s black list will come as a relief to the Mauritian economy and businesses all around the globe. After the US, Mauritius is the second largest route for inflow from foreign portfolio investors.
