##gilance and awareness of trends of serious crimes in the country and emerging threats impacting the system. it also calls for effective responses in the form of more robust, agile controls to address these identified trends and threat in a timely manner. from the national risk assessment 2020 undertaken by members of the national coordination committee to counter money laundering and to assess and facilitate the understanding of ml / tf risk exposures, it was found that the top five high - risks crimes that pose substantial ml / tf threats to the country are corruption, fraud, smuggling, illicit drug trafficking and organised crimes. corruption remains a systemic issue, and is particularly insidious, since it facilitates and sometimes enables others significant crimes such as fraud, drugs, human trafficking and environmental crimes. the assessment also indicated that the banking sector is exposed to high level of ml / tf risks. with banks as the nexus between all financial and non - financial sectors, the banking platform has become an ideal channel to be abused for criminal activities including corruption. 2 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches in this regard, it is crucial that banks understand these key risk drivers to accurately assess whether their current systems are sufficiently adequate in the face of such risks and deploy their resources more strategically to focus on addressing specific, high - risk areas. some best practices for control measures include improving the ability to deter illegal fund flows within the system, conducting swift identifications of illegal transactions and prompt submissions of suspicious transaction reports ( str ). banks are also highly encouraged to make good use of technological advancements to develop more holistic monitoring and risks detection systems, allowing for more prompt alerts and sophisticated red flag systems and stronger compliance to anti - money laundering & counter financing of terrorism ( aml / cft ) requirements. it goes without saying that savvy systems alone are not the one - stop solution. this must be complemented by continuously maintaining and upgrading relevant competencies of aml / cft personnel through investments in training. ladies and gentlemen, i would like to take a moment here to commend the industry on the strides it has made in the aml / cft space over time. in particular, strs received from the banking sector has steadily improved in quality over the years. there is no doubt that these strs and the overall cooperation of banks with the relevant authorities have been useful in supporting enforcement activities by law enforcement agencies. this includes supporting macc's investigations through timely responses to orders, provisions of documents and witnesses.

public debate. certain factors explain this. on the one hand, there is the highly technical and complex nature of the topics surrounding the multilateral trading system and its functioning, which are difficult to condense into sound bites. on the other hand, the common commercial policy is the exclusive competence of the european union, leading – wrongly, clearly – to the assumption that somehow it is a topic about which we have little to say. perhaps the difficulties facing the multilateral trading system at least have the virtue of pushing lively debate of international trade topics higher up the agenda. the initiative to hold this symposium therefore could not be more timely and fitting. 3. the success of gatt has been talked about for a long time in the literature, but it is worth 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches repeating, so great is its originality. it arose as a clever solution to address the weakness of the havana charter – not ratified by the united states – and the resulting failure to create the international trade organization. it came into force with a ‘ provisional ’ status for nearly half a century ( 1948 – 1995 ), through the protocol of provisional application. having started with 23 contracting parties, on the date the agreement establishing the wto entered into force there were already 128. however, it is more important to emphasise that gatt was undoubtedly successful in its core mission. indeed, with a minimalist constitution and without the legal and institutional basis of a true international organisation, but with a clear definition of the core principles and provision for suitable waivers to bring it flexibility and pragmatism, gatt created an international framework that led progressively to a huge reduction in customs laws and to the combating of non - tariff obstacles, thereby contributing to the expansion and promotion of international trade. in other words, if the ambition behind its origin might have been modest, the results achieved by gatt were impressive. we should remember that gatt also represents the ability, through international cooperation, to create a mutually beneficial international order, as was the case under the bretton woods system. that is a lesson that cannot be forgotten nor should be underestimated in any way. it is important to recall that the bretton woods system contributed to the perfect integration of the two great losers of the second world war, germany and japan, into the international economy, thereby showing an ability to learn from post - first world war mistakes. it brought prosperity to the countries that took part in it and showed from the outset an ongoing capacity to