President Leonid Kuchma signed a law according to which the State Department of Financial Monitoring will be removed from the composition of the Ministry of Finance and will become an independent and autonomous central body of executive power with a higher status. This is reported by "Interfax-Ukraine". \n \nThe law on introducing amendments to Article 4 of the law "On Prevention and Counteraction to Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime" enters into force on January 1, 2005. \n \nAccording to the law, the subject of state financial monitoring is a specially authorized executive power body on financial monitoring issues — a central executive power body with a special status. In the current legislation, such a subject is defined as a specially authorized executive power body on financial monitoring issues — a governmental body of state administration that operates within the composition of the Ministry of Finance. \n \nDerzhfinmonitorynh was created in February 2002. It was granted the status of a governmental body of state administration that operates within the composition of the Ministry of Finance and is subordinate to it. \n \nThe main tasks of this agency are participation in the implementation of state policy in the sphere of counteraction to the laundering of proceeds from crime, collection, processing and analysis of information on financial operations subject to mandatory financial control, as well as on other operations related to the legalization of such proceeds. \n