ISLAMABAD – Pakistan will continue to stay on the greylist of FinancialAction Task Force (FATF) for failing to complete its action plan itemstwice in January and May 2019.
The international terror financing (TF) watchdog also asked Islamabad totake steps to “address its strategic counter-terrorist financing-relateddeficiencies”.
It further noticed that the country does not “demonstrate a properunderstanding of Pakistan’s transnational TF risk.”
FATF’s Asia-Pacific Group (APG), which met in China in mid-May, was notimpressed by Pakistan’s action on terror financing. Islamabad was put onthe greylist in 2018 which means the country comes under financialjurisdiction with ‘structural deficiencies’ in anti-money laundering (AML)and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) or just supports thefinancing of terror.
Being on FATF’s greylist impacts a weak Pakistani economy which loses $10billion annually.
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In a statement issued after the end of the week-long plenary of FATF inOrlando, Florida, the FAFT strongly urged “Pakistan to swiftly complete itsaction plan by October 2019 when the last set of action plan items are setto expire.”
It further warned, if Islamabad doesn’t comply by Oct 2019, “FATF willdecide the next step at that time for insufficient progress” which couldrefer to a possible blacklisting.
