Team News Riveting
Islamabad, October 21
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global money laundering and terrorism financing watchdog, on Friday removed Pakistan from the “grey list”.
Pakistan had been on the infamous grey list since 2018. The decision was taken by the FATF in its plenary held in Paris on October 20-21.
In a statement, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said it welcomed Pakistan’s significant progress in improving its anti-money laundering, and combating financial terrorism (AML/CFT) regime.
Addressing the press conference at the conclusion of its plenary, FATF President Raja Kumar said, “It has two concurrent action plans. After a lot of work by Pakistani authorities, they have largely addressed all of the action plan items.”
He stated that the task force had conducted an onsite visit at the end of August. The onsite team verified that there is a high-level of commitment from the Pakistani leadership, sustainability of reforms and commitment to make improvements in the future, he said. “As a result of these action plans, Pakistan has made significant improvements to strengthen the effectiveness of this framework for combating terrorism financing,” Kumar added.
The FATF President said steps had also been taken to strengthen risk-based supervision of financial and non-financial institutions, improve asset confiscation outcomes, and investigate and prosecute money laundering. “As a result of this, Pakistan has been removed from the increased monitoring list,” he said.
Significantly, for the first time, the FATF put Myanmar in the “high-risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action”, often referred to as the watchdog’s blacklist.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Pakistan exiting the FATF grey list was a “vindication of our determined and sustained efforts over the years”. He congratulated the civil and military leadership as well as all institutions whose hard work led to today’s success.
Shehbaz particularly commended the role and efforts of Foreign Minister Bilawal, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, their teams and all political parties for putting up a united front to get Pakistan out of the grey list.
