-Army’s hectic efforts, China’s sincere help enables Pakistan to get off FATF’s Grey List
-Watchdog says Pakistan largely addressed all of the Action Plan items
-Hails concrete steps by Islamabad in combating terror financing
-President, PM, FM congratulate nation on the development
-Days earlier China had thwarted Indian move to malign Pakistan at UN
-India’s bids to sabotage CPEC, Pakistan-China economic cooperation also doom to fail
DM Monitoring
PARIS: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global money laundering and terrorism financing watchdog, on Friday removed Pakistan from a list of countries under “increased monitoring”, also known as the “Grey List”.
Addressing the press conference at the conclusion of its plenary, FATF President Raja Kumar noted that Pakistan had been on the grey list since 2018.
“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 said.
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 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.
In its handout, the FATF stated that it welcomed Pakistan’s “significant progress” in improving its anti-money laundering and combating financing terror (AML/CFT) regime.
“Pakistan has strengthened the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime and addressed technical deficiencies to meet the commitments of its action plans regarding strategic deficiencies that the FATF identified in June 2018 and June 2021, the latter of which was completed in advance of the deadlines, encompassing 34 action items in total.
“Pakistan is, therefore, no longer subject to the FATF’s increased monitoring process,” the handout said, adding that the country would continue to work with the Asia-Pacific Group to further improve its AML/CFT system.
“Credit to all those who worked tirelessly, made changes in our laws & implemented the will to fight illegal movement of money,” the President said in a tweet posted on his social media account.
“Congratulations to the people of Pakistan for coming out of FATF grey list after four years of hard work by Government, institutions & individuals”, he stated.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was quick to congratulate the country on the development moments before the FATF press conference began.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Pakistan’s 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 Friday’s success. “Aap sab ko bohat bohat Mubarak,” the premier said, following up with a text smiley.
In a follow-up tweet, PM Shehbaz particularly commended the role and efforts of Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and their teams and all political parties for putting up a united front to get Pakistan out of the grey list.
Pakistan was included among jurisdictions under increased monitoring list in June 2018 for deficiencies in its legal, financial, regulatory, investigations, prosecution, judicial and non-government sector to fight money laundering and combat terror financing considered serious threat to global financial system.
Islamabad made high-level political commitments to address these deficiencies under a 27-point action plan. But later the number of action points was enhanced to 34.
The country had since been vigorously working with FATF and its affiliates to strengthen its legal and financial systems against money laundering and terror financing to meet international standards in line with 40-recommendations of the FATF.
A 15-member joint delegation of the FATF and its Sydney-based regional affiliate — Asia Pacific Group — paid an onsite visit to Pakistan from Aug 29 to Sept 2 to verify the country’s compliance with the 34-point action plan committed with the FATF.
The authorities that had kept the countrywide visit of the delegation low profile later termed it “a smooth and successful visit”. The delegation had detailed discussions with relevant agencies pursuant to the authorisation of onsite Visit by FATF Plenary in June 2022.
According to the Foreign Office, the focus of the visit was to validate on ground Pakistan’s high-level commitment and sustainability of reforms in AML/CFT regime and [it] looked forward to logical conclusion to the evaluation process. The report of FATF Onsite team will be discussed in FATF’s International Cooperation Review Group and plenary meetings.
Pakistan believed that as a result of strenuous and consistent efforts over the past four years, it has not only achieved a high degree of technical compliance with FATF standards but also ensured high level of effectiveness through implementation of two comprehensive FATF action plans.
In June this year, FATF had found Pakistan “compliant or largely compliant” on all the 34 points and had decided to field an onsite mission to verify it on ground before formally announcing the country’s exit from the grey list that finally took place in August and September.
In terms of technical compliance with FATF standards, Pakistan has been rated by APG as “compliant or largely compliant” in 38 out of 40 FATF recommendations in August this year, which placed the country among the top compliant countries in the world.
Last month, the Foreign Office said a FATF technical team had conducted a “successful” visit and Islamabad was expecting a “logical conclusion” of the evaluation process in October.
Days earlier, China had once again thwarted an Indian move in the United Nations to malign Pakistan just days before an important meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
On Tuesday, India made a move in the United States to blacklist Shahid Mahmood, who had been designated by the US in 2016 as a Lashkar-e-Taiba fundraiser. On Wednesday, India made another move to blacklist Hafiz Talah Saeed, the son of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed.
China, however, thwarted both moves by putting a hold on the Indian proposals. Highlighting such groups so close to the FATF plenary would have boosted India’s efforts to keep Pakistan on the gray list.
“These Indian listings relate to moribund organisations and are designed to malign Pakistan and distract attention from India’s sponsorship of TTP and BLA terrorism,” Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram told media.
Besides supporting terrorist groups in Pakistan, India was also going for Chinese targets to “sabotage CPEC and Pakistan-China economic cooperation,” Ambassador Akram added. “We’re glad China has rejected India’s malign moves.”
In Islamabad, a spokesperson for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs told journalists that such moves were part of a “malevolent campaign” by India, through media leaks.
“This is not the first time the Indian media has been fed through official leaks to promote misleading, baseless and fabricated propaganda against Pakistan, just before the official FATF meetings,” the spokesperson said.
