Pakistan likely to be removed from FATF greylist: sources
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ISLAMABAD - Pakistan is likely to be removed from FATF greylist, sources have revealed.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Plenary and Working Group meetings to be held in Orlando on June 16-21, 2019 are likely to decide whether to remove Pakistan from the grey-list or downgrade it further to the black-list based on the assessment report of Asia Pacific Group (APG), according to a report published in* Business Recorder.*
During the Asia Pacific-Joint Group face-to-face meeting in Guangzhou, China, on May 15-16, Pakistan presented its case and presented all the actions that it had taken in compliance with FATF’s regulations.
Based on this the APG group will prepare a report which will be presented at the Plenary and Working Group meeting at Orlando, Florida.
“Pakistan has taken enough steps with regard to money laundering and combating Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) in compliance with the FATA requirements to be removed from the grey list,” an official said.
According to the report, the officials told that efforts are underway to improve diplomatic ties with member states to get a favourable vote and counteract the Indian lobby towards downgrading Pakistan to the blacklist.
They further claimed that there was informal acknowledgement in the APG meeting in China that Pakistan has made sufficient progress on the FATF Action Plan.
The official said that India was still co-chairing the APG meeting despite Pakistan’s reservations and demands for replacement.
It is pertinent to mention that India has been aggressively lobbying to get Pakistan downgraded from the greylist to the blacklist. And Pakistan had raised concerns over the FATF’s decision to appoint India as Joint Group’s co-chair, saying the decision would undermine the authenticity of the watchdog.
Earlier in June 2018, Pakistan was placed in the grey-list.
