Pakistan has made progress on all the 27 benchmarks laid down in Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Action Plan and sent its compliance report to FATF near end January.

This was claimed by government sources who added that they are hopeful that Pakistan would be out of the Grey List following the upcoming meeting of global terror financing watchdog.

FATF would review Pakistan’s progress on the Action Plan in its three-day meeting being held on February 22, February 24 and February 25.

Three main concerns of FATF notably terror financing, money laundering and activities of proscribed outfits have been addressed, the government officials further claimed.

The FATF has given Pakistan plenty of time to make progress on the action plan handed over to the country. In June 2018, FATF placed Pakistan on a gray list for failing to implement effective measures to curb terrorist financing and money laundering.

In the October 2020 review, the watchdog said Pakistan. “successfully complied with 21 out of 27 points of the action plan. But decided to keep the country on its grey list until February 2021.”

FATF |

So far, it has refrained from blacklisting Pakistan with the support of countries including China, Turkey and Malaysia. To some extent, pressure is mounting from China on Pakistan to do further progress in FATF.

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FAVORABLE DECISION EXPECTED FROM FATF

Pakistan has reportedly worked hard on the remaining six points and expects a favorable decision at the upcoming meeting. “From our side, we sure that all the benchmarks set in FATF Action Plan achieved. We have exhausted all possible options to make sure that all the 27 requirements are met. We believe we have achieved this target. Now it’s up to them (FATF) how they see the progress. We have made and what decisions they take,” a senior government official told Business Recorder.

FATF | Financial Action Task Force | Pakistan | Grey List | Anti Money Laundering | AML | Terror Financing |