On Thursday, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) announced that it is retaining Pakistan on the grey list.
FATF President Dr. Marcus Pleyer addressed a post-plenary conference in which he announced that Pakistan remains on the “increased monitoring list.”
According to the FATF president, Pakistan has two concurrent action plans with a total of 34 action plan items. “It has now addressed 30 of the items,” he added.
“It’s a most recent action plan from June this year which largely focused on money laundering deficiencies was issued after FATF’s regional partner APG (Asian Pacific Group) identified a number of serious issues.
Overall, Pakistan is making “good progress” on the new action plan, he said, adding that of the 7 new items, four have been “addressed or largely addressed.”
Dr. Pleyer also spoke of Pakistan’s earlier action plan, dating back to June 2018, and which focuses on terrorist financing issues, “Pakistan is still assessed to have largely addressed 26 out of 27 items.”
He said Pakistan still needs to demonstrate investigations and prosecutions are being pursued against the senior leadership of UN-designated terror groups.
On the eve, a journalist asked Dr. Pleyer to comment on Pakistan’s concerns regarding there being “political connotations” for its continued presence on the grey list, especially in the backdrop of the Indian foreign minister, in July this year, openly saying that Pakistan is in the grey list because of India.
Responding to a query, the FATF president said he would not comment on the Indian foreign minister’s statement. “FATF is a technical body and we make our decisions by consensus so it is not only one country.
