PARIS. July 6: French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius will be seeking support for financial sanctions against countries falling to combat money laundering when he meets with his Group of Seven counterparts in Japan on Saturday. says AFP.

Fabius said last month that France would be putting the sanctions proposal forward at the G7. after the international Financial Action Task Force on money laundering identified 15 territories failing to cooperate in international efforts to combat money laundering.

"We will do all we can to introduce financial sanctions against those countries which do not respect the normal international rules" aimed at curbing money laundering, Fabius said then.

These could "go as far as banning all financial relations of any kind” with blacklisted territories. Fabius said.

"Among these countries are

countries whose people we are helping, but If they do not respect the International rules, if they harbour International criminals, drug barons, traffickers of any kind, we cannot help them. That Is clear," he warned

But it is not clear how much support France will win at the G7 finance ministers' meeting in Fukuoka on Saturday, or at the annual G8 summit on July 21-23 when the G7 are Joined by Russia — which itself featured on the FATF list of non-cooperators.

The United States welcomed the FATF report and said it would look at ways to tighten measures against non-cooperators but has not given a view on the French proposal, while Canada has distanced Itself from the French suggestion.

Saturday's meeting involves G7 members Britain. Canada. France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

Money laundering has been

on the G7 agenda for some time, as part of efforts to improve international financial stability in the wake of the Aslan and Russian crises that rocked the world economy in 1997 and 1998.

But the best the G7 finance ministers could come up with at their last meeting In April was a call for "accelerated and sustained progress in our fight against money laundering and financial crimes "

Since then there has been some concrete progress in the form of several attacks on tax havens.

In addition to the FATF list, the G7 countries and four others forming the Financial Stability Forum published in May a "league table" of tax havens, classifying them according to the quality of their financial regulation and supervision.

Then in late June the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development grouping 29 industrial countries pub-

lished a list ol 35 tax havens whose tax regimes were deemed essentially aimed at attracting Investment from companies seeking to avoid paying tax at home.

That list was the only one that even mentioned sanctions, and even then they were indirect. with the threat of punitive tax measures against Investors putting their money in territories who fall to clean up their act by July next year.

But France has long argued that more decisive measures arc necessary, up to and Including a ban on all financial transactions with territories making life easy for money launderers.

And Fabius has already served notice that whatever happens In Japan. France will use Its current six-month presidency ol the European Union to convene a meeting on October 17 of EU finance, interior and Justice ministers "to discuss in detail the financial sanctions to be taken against tax havens."