China imposed fines totaling 56.29 million yuan (about 7 million U.S. dollars) on 600 financial institutions in 2005 for violating anti-money laundering rules, Wednesday's China Business News reports.

The central bank's anti-money laundering monitoring and analyzing center received suspect transactions involving 80 billion yuan (some 10 billion dollars) and 800 million dollars, the report says.

It is estimated that the size of money laundering in China falls between 300 billion yuan to 400 billion yuan each year.

The central bank issued China's first rules on anti-money laundering in 2003, which demanded financial institutions to report suspicious transactions to the central bank.

Xiang Junbo, vice governor of the central bank, said earlier that the drafting of an anti-money laundering law has come to the end and it will be submitted to the legislative body for approval in April.

The new law shall include provisions on the financing of terrorist activities, he said.

Source: Xinhua