ajith nivard cabraal : money laundering and terrorism financing speech by mr ajith nivard cabraal, governor of the central bank of sri lanka, at the asiapacific group on money laundering typologies workshop 2008, colombo, 27 october 2008. * * * his lordship, the chief justice, hon sarath n silva, the attorney general, other distinguished guests from sri lanka as well as from abroad ; my dear friends. at the outset, i wish to extend to all of you a very warm welcome to this asia pacific group seminar on money laundering and terrorism financing. it is indeed a pleasure to see all of you here, from 34 different countries, and we hope that you will have a wonderful stay and take back happy memories of your period here ; not only as far as the conference is concerned, but also by experiencing our country. sri lanka has been in the forefront of the worldwide efforts on the containment of money laundering and terrorism financing. we have been associated with this effort in a special way, not only to help the international effort, but also to fulfil our own local needs. that is why we are very pleased to see such a large gathering of experts on this subject who are getting together to develop ways and means by which this vexed problem could be dealt with. we are also particularly pleased to have with us, his lordship the chief justice who has graced this occasion and by doing so has unambiguously displayed the commitment of sri lanka ’ s judiciary to this massive effort. our effort against money laundering and terrorist financing cannot be made by one or two persons only, or by one or two agencies only. it has to be a co - ordinated and concentrated effort that needs the support of a wide range of people, both nationally and internationally. in that context, sri lanka ’ s commitment is clear to everyone, and we are particularly pleased to have you with us, the honourable chief justice. my dear friends, the fight against terrorism cannot only be on the military field or battle ground. in my view, the fight has to be on four different fronts simultaneously. although it is vitally important, one cannot defeat terrorism by a military effort only. to successfully deal with terrorism, we need a diplomatic offensive also. diplomatically, we need to ensure that cohesive steps are taken so that, together, countries can meet this challenge. at the same time, the fight has to be on the international media front as well. therefore

also in the south asian region towards financial inclusion. by 2005, micro finance institutions covered at least 35mn of some 270mn people in the south asian region and met around 15 % of the overall credit requirements of low - income families. in sri lanka, the coverage is particularly high at 60 %. the high outreach in sri lanka is based on an extensive network of community - based organizations that receive considerable government subsidies. almost all rural financial institutions in sri lanka have provided easy access to women, particularly in the villages, estates and among fishing communities. financial institutions that are directly involved in this area, are the licensed commercial banks, licensed specialized banks, micro finance institutions, cooperative rural banks, the sanasa thrift and credit cooperative movement, seeds and other non - governmental organizations. let us examine the extent to which financial inclusion for women has taken place through the existing institutional network and assess the deficiencies and gaps, although we may not be able to do a comprehensive analysis. the participation of women in credit programs as at end december 2007 is given in the following table : table iii women ’ s participation in the credit programmes as at december 2007 value no. of loans institution rs. mn female total 50, 804 43, 277 94, 081 1, 614 n. a. * n. a. * n. a. * n. a. * 3. sanasa development bank 321, 687 246, 896 568, 583 13, 000 43. 42 thrift & credit societies 36, 726 85, 696 122, 422 2, 816 70. 00 4. cooperative rural banks ( crbs ) 316, 142 135, 490 451, 632 8, 999. 0 30. 00 5. poverty alleviation microfinance project ( pamp ) 12, 604 39, 388 51, 992 1, 058. 4 75. 76 6. small farmers & landless credit project ( sflcp ) 8, 681 9, 350 244. 5 92. 84 11, 540 23, 081 34, 621 1, 986 66. 67 1. regional development banks ( rdbs ) 2. licensed commercial banks ( lcbs ) 7. mfis – seeds ( sks ) male % received by women na – refers to the non - availability of disaggregated data source : regional development dept., central bank of sri lanka as shown in the table, the small farmers