omissions that national legislators consider to be punishable by that law. laws are therefore designed to protect us and ensure our safety in all aspects : physical, financial, psychological and social. the extent to which money is laundered globally is estimated to be between $ 500 billion and $ 1 trillion. the wide range of the estimate highlights the difficulties associated with obtaining accurate data on this problem. this is the case because only a limited number of countries have set up anti money laundering regimes that are up and running and therefore able to provide appropriate statistics. the problem of lack of accurate money laundering statistics in africa is compounded where the setting - up of anti - money laundering regimes is only gaining momentum now. it will take some time for africa to build up accurate statistics on money laundering as this would have to be sourced from actual cases investigated and finalized. further, a good understanding of the national money laundering activities requires concerted national research and studies of the money laundering typologies commonly practiced in each country. in this regard, it is worth mentioning that the institute for security studies in south africa has initiated a number of researches and studies aimed at documenting the extent of money laundering in africa, especially southern africa. however, the sufficiency and integrity of the statistics provided by the institute is only as good as the national sources supplying the information. it is therefore imperative that national efforts to determine the extent of money laundering must be improved as these statistics are important for convincing the legislative and political processes on the need for legislative changes necessary for effective combating of money laundering. the anti money laundering laws protect the rights of individuals by providing for the articulation of what crime is, the acts of crime and the punishment thereof. legislators, in consultation with their constituents through legislation on crime, lay the foundation for basic individual human rights and the attainment of inner individual self fulfillment. crime and criminal acts work towards eroding these very basic individual rights. despite the enactment of laws designed to curb crime and acts of crime, these evils still take place and are in most cases on the increase. the law enforcement agencies the world over are overwhelmed by the sheer size and sophistication that criminals are now employing to perpetrate their illegal deeds. the efforts on crime prevention are now compounded by globalization that has created what one may say is a global economy in which organized crime groups and individuals can and do generate huge sums of money by drug trafficking, financial crime, corruption, intellectual property crime, terrorism

own economy, but also on key partner economies. i welcome the development of the principal global indicators ( pgis ) that will be comparable for the g20 economies, including the euro area, and which are similar to the principal european economic indicators for economic and monetary union. the pgi website maintained by the imf 17 is supported by six other international organisations, including the ecb. conclusions let me conclude. evidence - based decision - making in modern economies is unthinkable without statistics. this applies a fortiori to monetary and financial stability policies. the financial crisis has revealed information gaps that we have to close while also preparing ourselves for future challenges. this is best achieved through creating a wide range of economic and financial statistics that are mutually consistent, thereby eliminating contradictory signals due to measurement issues. the main aggregates must be both reliable and timely, and, in a globalised world, they should be comparable across countries and economies. reliability and timeliness are key for statistics, but may seem to be conflicting objectives. this is more the case in the short - term, as the production frontier for compiling statistics can be enhanced in the medium term by a higher degree of automation. the effective and efficient collection, compilation and dissemination of european statistics requires a well developed statistical infrastructure, including, most importantly, a team of skilled and experienced statisticians familiar with european and international cooperation. i take tomorrow ’ s world statistics day as an occasion to remind all of us of the importance of highquality statistics. they are central to the foundations of public and private sector decisionmaking throughout our societies. thank you for your attention. see http : / / financialdatalink. sharepointsite. net / default. aspx.