ISLAMABAD: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is expected to make a final decision today on whether to retain Pakistan on the grey list of anti-money laundering and terror financing regimes.
The FATF President will give a press briefing on the outcomes of the plenary session at 14:00 GMT (7:00 PM PST) today.
The three-day meeting of the FATF, the global anti-money laundering body, began on 21st October and today is its last day. The meeting will review Pakistan’s measures against money laundering and decide whether to put the country on a further grey list. Due to the coronavirus, the FATF meeting will be held online.
The news was circulating on social media yesterday that Saudi Arabia had voted against Pakistan, which has made it difficult to get out of the grey list, but the Foreign Office had officially denied it.
Pakistan has complied with only 14 of the 27 FATF recommendations. Pakistan was given four months by the FATF in February this year to meet the remaining 13 recommendations.
Read more: FATF extends action plan deadline for Pakistan till October 2020
It is on the basis of the implementation of these recommendations that the FATF decides whether to add or remove a country from the grey or blacklist.
India and its allies have been trying to blacklist Pakistan because, according to them, Pakistan has not been serious about taking steps to curb terrorism and its financing. The FATF meeting in Paris in February this year and earlier in October last year was very important but in both these meetings, Pakistan could not get out of the grey list.
