Islamabad: The global financial watchdog FATF has acknowledged Pakistan’s commitment and progress on the issues of concern even if it has decided to further keep it on the grey list until June, a senior minister said on Thursday.
Indicating status quo of being on FATF’’s grey list’’, the global body on Thursday said Pakistan will continue to remain on increased monitoring list as there are “serious deficiencies” in checking terror financing and the country lacks an effective system to deal with it.
The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had placed Pakistan on the grey list in June 2018 and asked Islamabad to implement a plan of action to curb money laundering and terror financing by the end of 2019 but the deadline was extended later on due to COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision taken on Thursday was part of the virtual FATF plenary from February 22 to 25 to consider cases of various countries on the grey list, including Pakistan.
Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar, who had led Pakistan’s delegation at the plenary, tweeted that Pakistan has completed almost 90 per cent of its current FATF action-plan with 24 out of 27 items rated as ‘’largely addressed’’ and remaining 3 items ‘’partially addressed’’.
“FATF has acknowledged Pak’’s high level political commitment since 2018 that led to significant progress,” he said.
The minister added that it was also noted by FATF member countries that Pakistan is subject to perhaps the most challenging and comprehensive action plan ever given to any country.
“We are also subject to dual evaluation processes of FATF with differing time lines,” he said.
Separately, a statement issued by the government claimed that the FATF has appreciated Pakistan for the significant progress made on the entire action plan. “As of now, all the 10 action items pertaining to the financial sector and border controls have been addressed,” according to the statement.AGENCIES