UAE POSTPONES HAWALA CONFERENCE

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABU DHABI 001123 SIPDIS STATE FOR NEA/ARP - HEFFERNAN, NEA/RA - SUTPHIN, EB/ESC/ESP, INL/ENT - NOVIS, INL/C - CASSARA, AND S/CT - REALUYO TREASURY FOR OGC - AUFHAUSER, ENFORCEMENT DAS ZARATE, IEA DIRECTOR BOYLAN AND LONERGAN TREASURY PASS OFAC FOR NEWCOMB TREASURY PASS OTA FOR N. WORTHINGTON JUSTICE FOR OPDAT - JIM SILVERWOOD JUSTICE PASS TED GREENBERG JUSTICE FOR MONEY-LAUNDERING AND ASSET FORFEITURE SECTION -- DAVITT NSC FOR GARY PETERS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/09/07 TAGS: PTER EFIN ETTC PREL PGOV TC SUBJECT: UAE POSTPONES HAWALA CONFERENCE REF: ABU DHABI 619 ¶1. CLASSIFIED BY DCM RICHARD A.ALBRIGHT FOR REASONS 1.5 (B,D). ¶2. (C) In a meeting with Econchief 3/8 (other topics septel, notal),UAE Central Bank Governor Sultan bin Nasser Al-Suweidi stated that the planned Second International Conference on Hawala, scheduled for April 2-3 in Abu Dhabi, has been postponed. A formal notification would be issued shortly, but the decision had already been taken owing to poor response (only 20 participants had signed up on the Central Bank's website and not all these were firm acceptances). Econchief noted that the USG strongly supported the conference and had planned to participate with a sizable delegation. Al-Suweidi acknowledged this, but said that concerns about a likely conflict with Iraq had probably contributed to the lack of broader international support. The conference could be rescheduled, should there be sufficient interest, at a later date -- he would consult further with the FATF. ¶3. (C) With regard to the UAE's own regulations governing hawala, the Governor noted that now that approximately 30 hawaladars had come forward to register voluntarily, the UAE authorities are reaching out to those believed to be active in the business -- but who had not registered -- and "inviting" them to register. Al-Suweidi observed that this process of "invitation" had only been necessary in a small number of cases; he was pleased that the vast majority of registrations had been purely voluntary. Wahba