Minister Scicluna attends the 5+5 Finance Ministers’ meeting in Algiers

Finance Minister Edward Scicluna attended the third 5+5 Ministerial Conference (Finance and Investment) at the International Conference Centre of Algiers. Present for the meeting, among others, were the ministers of France (Bruno Le Marie); Italy (Giovanni Tria) and of the host country, Algeria (Abderrahmane Raouya).

Minister Scicluna said that this dialogue provided a forum for debate to strengthen cooperation and optimise existing resources to promote complementarities and synergies between the countries concerned on the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean.

The meeting served to discuss topics of common interest and addressed other matters such as the exchange of information and intelligence in the customs’ field and those related to tax policies to boost investment, contributing to the development of fintechs as well as financial and investment aspects related to climate change and the energy transition.

Minister Scicluna noted that in the previous two meetings, the finance ministers of the 10 Mediterranean countries addressed a number of issues including financial transparency and the implementation of international standards and standards of transparency, the Financial Action Task Force and the establishment of anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing mechanisms and cooperation in taxation including customs cooperation with a view to greater efficiency, especially in the fight against major trafficking.