Pakistan no longer facing FATF blacklist threat: minister.

Byline: Kalbe Ali

ISLAMABAD -- Minister for Industries and ProducAtion Hammad Azhar on Friday acknowledged that future timelines of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) action plan were challenging, but there was no possibility of Pakistan being blacklisted.

Addressing a press briefing a day after the FATF decided to keep Pakistan on its grey list till June, Mr Azhar said blacklisting was no more a threat because Pakistan had made significant progress in meeting the conditions.

'As you have seen, the FATF itself was saying that we are 90 per cent close to achieving this goal,' he said. 'I want to assure the nation that Pakistan has successfully avoided blacklisting.'

The minister, who is also chairman of the FATF Coordination Committee, said Pakistan's target was now to achieve all 27 points in the action plan and convey to the world that the country's financial system was on a par with international standards.

As pointed out by the FATF that Pakistan has met 24 of the 27 requirements, the minister expressed the confidence that the remaining three points would also be fulfilled. 'A lot of work has been done on the three points in which we are partially compliant and I see that we are close to being largely compliant in these areas,' Mr Azhar added.

The minister said Pakistan was perhaps the only country in the world that was under FATF's dual scrutiny.

'It was decided that Pakistan will remain under dual scrutiny because the Mutual Evaluation Report process was also ongoing,' the minister said, praising the government departments for their hard work.

'When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Pakistan had the option not to report - an option exercised by some countries - but we took advantage of that time and continued with the reporting,' the minister said, adding that 'the result is in front of you'.

The minister lauded the efforts of all state organs and gave them the credit of meeting the international body's requirements in combating money laundering and terror financing.

'Pakistan achieved exemplary progress despite a very tough action plan, tight timelines and the Covid-19 pandemic,' Mr Azhar said.

The three FATF requirements that Pakistan has failed to achieve so far are related to terror financing investigations. One of the requirements is to demonstrate that terrorism financing (TF) investigations and prosecutions target persons and entities acting on behalf or at the directive of the...