APG reviews key reports on Pakistan, other countries in 22nd annual meeting

APG also adopted global strategy to address the concerns related to terrorist financing.

CANBERRA (Dunya News) – Over 520 senior delegates from 46 jurisdictions and 13 international organisations came together in Canberra, Australia during the week of 18 – 23 August 2019 to convene the Asia Pacific Group’s 22nd annual meeting and annual technical assistance forum. In a statement issued by APG, during the week, APG members adopted six significant mutual evaluation reports. The reports - for China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, China, Pakistan, the Philippines and Solomon Islands - were analysed and discussed in detail over two full days and will now be subject to post-plenary quality and consistency review prior to publication. Final publication on the APG website is expected in early October 2019. The APG also adopted a number of follow-up reports for APG members and for joint APG/FATF members and also agreed on revised evaluation procedures for the coming year reflecting recent changes to global procedures.

APG members adopted a CFT Operational Plan as part of a global strategy to address the concerns related to terrorist financing. As part of this plan, the plenary agreed to undertake a typologies and implementation project examining the financing and facilitation of foreign fighters and returnees. Members agreed on a new joint project with the Alliance for Financial Stability with Information Technology – to develop a workshop to be held in early 2020 on the application of FATF Guidance on Digital KYC to the Asia Pacific region following its adoption/publication by the FATF in February 2020. The APG’s Annual Forum on Technical Assistance and Training held in tandem with the annual meeting included 30 meetings over five days, comprised of 26 individual sessions between members and donors of AML/CFT technical assistance. Three sub-regional meetings were also convened. These discussions led to important information-sharing and coordination mechanisms among the APG’s members, observers, donors and providers.