PARIS – Plenary meeting of a global money-laundering watchdog FinancialAction Task Force (FATF) will begin in Paris from today (Sunday) duringwhich Pakistan’s name is likely to be formally put on grey-list.

In the wake of the session, Finance Minister Shamshad Akhtar on Friday hadpresided over meeting which was also attended by Foreign Minister AbdullahHussain Haroon and National Security Adviser Lt General (retd) Nasir KhanJanjua.

Finance Minister, in her opening remarks, had expressed Pakistan’s strongresolve to keep up efforts on counter financing of terrorism. She said thatthe Finance Ministry has improved institutional mechanisms for handlingAML/CFT issues.

Earlier in February, FATF had hinted to place Pakistanlink>onits terrorist financing watchlist, in a likely blow to both Pakistan’seconomy and its strained relations with the United States.

Afterwards, Foreign Office spokesperson (FO) expressed serious concernslink>overthe introduction of this new nomination procedure which is unprecedentedand in clear violation of established rules/practices of FATF.

He added that most of the concerns raised by the US side regardingdeficiencies in our CFT/AML regime had already been addressed in 2015 whenPakistan got an exit from the “grey list”.