The move is part of efforts to fight money laundering.

A bird's eye view of property projects in HCMC. Property traders and exchanges are required to report cash transactions of VND300 million or more

All reports of suspicious or high-value transactions must be sent to the ministry’s Housing and Real Estate Market Management Agency and the Anti-Money Laundering Department of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), as regulated by anti-money laundering laws.

In addition, the local construction departments must order realty firms, traders and exchanges working with the sector to issue and execute internal regulations to fight money laundering and terror financing, in line with the 2012 Law on Anti-Money Laundering and related laws. If the required regulations have already been issued for internal use, they have to check and revise these rules.

Further, they are required to send a list of these internal regulations to the ministry’s Housing and Real Estate Market Management Agency and the SBV’s Anti-Money Laundering Department prior to August 1 to serve inspection and supervisory activities.

They have to conduct risk evaluations for money laundering and terror financing during property transactions and report the results no later than September 1.

The construction ministry, in a note approved by Deputy Minister Nguyen Van Sinh, asked the realty firms, property traders and exchanges to contact the SBV’s Anti-Money Laundering Department to find information and instructions on black lists, warning lists and lists of politically exposed persons (PEPs).

PEPs are high-risk customers who have more opportunities than regular citizens to obtain assets through illegal means such as money laundering and bribes.

Also, the affected firms, traders and exchanges can receive instructions on ways to conform to anti-money laundering regulations and can access reports on national risk evaluations of the two unlawful practices. SGT

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