The draft of China's first anti-money laundering law will be submitted to the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, for review this year.

The announcement was made in a report issued by the People's Bank of China (PBC) on Tuesday. According to the report, lawmakers are drafting the law with the assistance of 17 government departments including the bank, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Finance.

An official with PBC, China's central bank, said the law will probably extend the scope of application into other major areas of "upstream crimes" that generally involve the sources of money being laundered.

The existing Criminal Law only applies to money laundering through drug trafficking, organized crime, terrorism and smuggling.

The new law is likely to include embezzlement and bribery.

The report also said the PBC is drafting regulations to tackle money laundering in the securities and insurance industries.

A total of 50 money laundering cases, involving up to US$517 million, were jointly investigated by the police, the central bank and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange last year.

In April 2004, China established an anti-money laundering monitoring analysis center to collect, analyze and supply information on money laundering activities in the country.

By the end of 2004, the center had received a total of 10,740 reports of illicit monetary transactions.

(China Daily July 14, 2005)