The 20th Annual Meeting of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering will be held in Colombo during July 17-21, with the participation of about 450 local and foreign delegates from 41 member countries and several international observer organisations.

The Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, more commonly known as the APG, was founded in Bangkok, Thailand in 1997, initially by thirteen countries including Sri Lanka.

The APG is the regional body tasked with the monitoring of the effective implementation and enforcement of internationally accepted standards against money laundering and the financing of terrorism, in particular, the Forty Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force within member countries. Currently, the APG has a varied membership consisting of small economies in the Pacific to the largest economies in the world such as United States, China, Japan and the India.