Pakistan to come out of FATF grey list in 2020: Hammad Azhar
The minister said completion of FATF action plan would enhance the capacity of national institutions
ISLAMABAD (APP) – Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Muhammad Hammad Azhar Wednesday expressed the confidence that Pakistan was progressing positively on the action plan of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and would come out of its “grey list” in 2020.
The country’s progress had been duly recognized in the FATF’s September report, he said while addressing a press conference here.
The minister said considerable progress had been made on many points of the action plan in a short period of 10 months. Till last month, action on five items out of 27 had been accomplished while the rest were largely or partially completed.
Pakistan’s performance, he said, was appreciated at the FATF’s plenary session.
Hammad Azhar said some circles wanted to merge action plans of Asia Pacific Group (APG) and International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) of FATF which could have made the situation quite difficult for Pakistan with the number of action items exceeding over 100. Completion of action plans of both APG and ICRG by February next year would not have been feasible for Pakistan, he added.
“We will have to complete the task for Asia Pacific Group by February and for International Cooperation Review Group we have gotten time till October next year, which is a success for Pakistan.”
The minister said a dedicated autonomous secretariat was being established for issues relating to the FATF, which would work in coordination with all the provinces and departments.
Moreover, special cells had also been set up in all the relevant government departments to comply with the requirements of FATF, he added.
He lauded the Financial Monitoring Unit, State Bank of Pakistan, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, armed forces, and law enforcing agencies, all the provincial governments and Federal Board of Revenue for their efforts to achieve the objectives.
He said the final report would be submitted to the FATF in January.
The minister said completion of the FATF action plan would enhance the capacity of national institutions and maintain the standard for following the best international practices in the country.
Hammad said in the grey list states, the process for improving the system was underway. The FATF basically wanted to improve the intra-institutional coordination mechanism for improving the system, he added.
