UN General Assembly
2000

have been set up, and here we also rely on the help of our great friend and neighbour, France. The legislation in place to combat money-laundering is the same as that in most developed countries. In fact, in certain areas, it is even more stringent. Monaco has set up an information and monitoring service on financial flows to allow for the involvement of legal authorities when necessary and for the exchange of information with the equivalent foreign institutions. The Principality is in no way a laissez- faire zone in which all types of wealth can be accumulated. Nor can it be termed an `opaque' financial venue, unless we believe that transparency does not exist anywhere. Some see Monaco as a kind of fiscal paradise, as if we had attempted to create artificial mechanisms to attract floating capital and wealthy people trying to avoid taxation in their own countries. The truth is that direct taxation was abolished in 1869, at a time when there was no tax on the income of natural persons