Act that may increase the Authority's ability to protect against money laundering.

And Finance Minister the Hon. Grant Gibbons also revealed yesterday that Bermuda is set to host the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Conference next year.

Dr. Gibbons, who recently returned from this year's event in Jamaica, said the session included discussions on money laundering. And while the Bermuda Government is convinced that they are well ahead in having safeguards in place against some forms of money laundering, they remain open to improvements.

He said: "What we are now intending to put in place is a money laundering act per se, which covers the broad spectrum of money laundering, not just drug money laundering.

"Lawyers in the Attorney General's Chambers have already been working on that. They are looking at this model law from the Finance Ministers Conference. But also we are having a look at the recent UK Criminal Justice Act. I think we should be able to have something drafted by the autumn.'' He continued: "The kinds of things that we are talking about in terms of draft legislation are things like strengthening financial sector reporting systems within the banks, and strengthening financial supervision, which in this case would involve the BMA and the Ministry of Finance.'' Dr. Gibbons added: "We are looking at amendments to the BMA Act right now and certainly that could well be part of that amendment. But the Vienna Convention was extended to Bermuda in February.

"We also, through the BMA, have adopted the Basle principles and have two codes of conduct in place for financial institutions, which deal with the whole issue of money laundering.

"Bermuda also became a member of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force in 1993.'' Meanwhile, the hosting of the Finance Ministers' Conference next September is a major coup for Bermuda, with some 300 participants expected to fly in for the event. It has never before been staged here. Roughly 50 countries will be represented at the meeting.

And on the issue of money laundering, the Minister said: "One of the things that has been broadly adopted, has been the need for the individual countries, within the context of their own constitutions and laws, to put in place a money laundering law.

"There has been a model law that has essentially been recommended by the group as a whole. But obviously that is something that in Bermuda we will look at in the context of our existing legislation and our own financial institutions.

"The UK has also just put in a law and other countries, Cayman for example, are also in the course of drafting legislation for money laundering.

"Bermuda has a number of pieces of legislation in place that deals with money laundering as it refers to drugs. But what the conference was talking about was the broader issue of money laundering, insofar as it related to any kind of illicit money, which is then cleaned up by being channelled through legitimate sources.

"Bermuda has been reasonably on top of the money laundering issue generally.''