China's lawmakers have scrapped plans to hold developers, lawyers, accountants, auctioneers and jewelers responsible for criminal money laundering after objections from professional organizations.

However, they have retained a provision in their revised anti-money laundering bill to hold the "non-financial sector" accountable for monitoring illicit cash flows alongside financial institutions.

The previous draft listed property developers, law firms, accounting firms, auction agents, and jewelers as businesses subject to close financial supervision.

But lawmakers said the revision, which is under review, used the broader term "non-financial sector" to broaden the law's scope.

The National Auction Committee had voiced opposition to the bill, saying the auction sector was a less probable target for money launderers than other sectors omitted from the first draft.

"It is necessary to order sectors to improve monitoring, but the law at this stage should avoid specific provisions as China lacks experience on this issue," said Chen Shu, deputy head of the All-China Lawyers' Association and a deputy to the National People's Congress.

The revised version stipulates that practical rules will be set at a later stage by law enforcement agencies and the State Council.

"It is better that the revised draft leaves room for change at a time that money laundering is occurring in more sectors and rapidly increasing," said Miao Mancong, NPC deputy and manager of the Changsha branch of the Bank of China in central China.

The bill, focusing on prevention and monitoring of money laundering, requires institutions, especially banks, to set up customer databases, to ascertain the exact sources and number of capital transactions, and to report large and suspicious transactions.
The national anti-money laundering organization, set up two years ago, would be authorized to freeze suspicious accounts and transactions with police and bank collaboration.

The bill was first submitted to the legislature in April and aims to curb the upstream sources of illegal revenues, such as drug trafficking, corruption, and gang activities.

(Xinhua News Agency August 25, 2006)