Malaysia, China & Turkey support Pakistan on FATF

ISLAMABAD: Malaysia, China, and Turkey have announced their support to Pakistan in regard to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meetings scheduled to take place from 13th October in Paris.

According to sources, Pakistan lobbied three friendly states ahead of the FATF meetings and Malaysia, China and Turkey announced their support for Pakistan.

Three friendly states said that there was no chance that Pakistan’s name would be included in the blacklist, but if its name was not withdrawn from the grey list, it would remain there for another six months.

Also read: FO denies Indian minister’s remarks over its FATF listing

A technical team of Pakistan, headed by the Financial Monitoring Unit director-general, which is currently staying in China will leave for Paris today to hold talks with the FATF officials.

Moreover, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar will leave for Paris on Wednesday and after participating in the FATF meetings will attend the meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the US.

The study identified the departments and areas which were vulnerable, weak and insecure were previously rejected by the FATF.

However, the new study contained action taken against banned organisations involved in terrorism and terrorism financing along with the progress regarding prosecution.

Being on the blacklist means its banking system will be regarded as one with poor controls over AML and CFT standards forget bringing PayPal to Pakistan, expatriates will find it difficult to send remittances.

The government, too, will struggle to raise funds from international markets if the country is placed on the blacklist.

Based out of Paris, the FATF is an inter-governmental body that combats money laundering, terrorist financing and threats to the international financial system.

FATF put Pakistan on its grey list in June 2017 because of deficiencies in the country’s anti-money laundering and countering of terror financing regulations.

Pakistan’s name in the grey list means that Pakistan would be required to submit quarterly follow-up reports to the Asia Pacific Group (APG).

The next session of FATF is scheduled to be held in Paris by the end of October. Pakistan is currently being monitored at three different but interlinked levels, APG, the United States, and the FATF.