The UAE News report: Pakistan government on Saturday welcomed the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) decision to keep the country on ‘grey list’ for further four months. Hammad Azhar, minister for industries and production, said it is a great diplomatic achievement of PTI government.
His remarks came after the official announcement of the FATF that the body will keep Pakistan on watch list till February next year.
The Pakistan minister mentioned that no voting criteria was adopted for the decision for Pakistan during the meeting, which was held on Friday.
FATF MEETING
Earlier on Friday, the body had said that Pakistan will remain on ‘grey list’ for further four months until February 2021 as the country has to do more action and fix six out of 27 actions needed by the FATF which are related with anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT).
FATF in a communique said that Pakistan has taken action against most of the items such as 21 out of 27 action items. FATF urged Pakistan government for completion action against all items by February next year. The next meeting of FATF is happening on February 21-26 to discuss Pakistan case again, according to the watchdog.
Pakistan took it a positive decision and claimed that FATF has shown confidence in Pakistan efforts to fulfil the requirements of the body.
The confident minister further claimed that Pakistan will not be blacklisted by the FATF. The minister attended the virtual plenary session of the body.
FIRST ACTION
In June 2018, Pakistan’s name appeared on the ‘grey list’ of FATF because of deficiencies in the country’s AML/CFT regime, according to media reports.
Pakistan has addressed highly important areas of the financial sector in its action plan such as illegal hawala/hundi, cross-border currency regime and international cooperation in terrorists financing cases.
Considering the Pakistan efforts towards meeting the action against the items advised by the FATF, the body has given further time to Pakistan to fulfill all requirement and then the country would be placed on white list that will benefit a lot to Pakistan in many ways.
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