Some good news.

THAT Pakistan has finally got the assurance of an on-site visit from the FATF to verify the 'implementation and sustainability of the country's money-laundering and counterterrorism financing measures' before it is formally removed from the task force's increased monitoring (grey) list, is the best outcome we could have hoped for from the current review.

It means that Pakistan should be removed from the grey list in October once the on-site inspection is conducted.

In its recent Berlin plenary, the global money-laundering and terrorist-financing watchdog has made its initial determination that Pakistan has substantially completed two action plans, complying with all 34 items, noting that this showed that the 'necessary political commitment remains in place to sustain implementation and improvement in the future'.

According to the watchdog: 'Pakistan demonstrated that terror-financing investigations and prosecutions target senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terrorist groups and that there is a positive upwards trend in the number of money-laundering investigations and prosecutions being pursued in Pakistan... .'

This assessment of Pakistan's efforts to exit the grey list is primarily based on the extensive work done by the previous PTI government to simultaneously complete two challenging action plans given to it for compliance to avoid being blacklisted.

Yet it will be unfair to not give credit to the coalition government for using diplomatic channels to help the country exit the list. There are reports that China had recently been working quietly to help Islamabad on this front.

Read: There and back again - a timeline of Pakistan's unfortunate 'grey listing' by FATF

Many believe that the decision also indicates tacit US support. If...

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