Comments

Distinguished Members of the panel, distinguished authorities, guests, colleagues, participants, students, ladies and gentlemen

I would like to express my thankfulness to the organization for the invitation to act as a commentator in a panel to this important conference that celebrates the EU-Macau cooperation program in the legal field. This is a remarkable initiative to which I have had the pleasure to modestly contribute by organizing a 4-weeks series of seminars with three outside speakers from Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom, and myself, in the Spring and Summer of 2005. The seminars focused on topics regarding money laundering, confiscation of proceeds of crime, financing of terrorism, detection mechanisms, financial sanctions, and the implementation of international standards in these fields in the Macau SAR. These topics are widely recognized as of considerable importance, and the cooperation program has contributed to the knowledge of these and many other topical matters. Recent events in Macau have confirmed that these are indeed topical matters.