Islamabad, Jan 29 (IANS) Pakistan had made significant progress to exit the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Reza Baqir said, adding that the central bank had been making all-out efforts to curb money laundering and terror financing.
On Tuesday, Baqir said that the last two reviews in May and September 2019 showed that Pakistan had made significant progress in most of the 27 points raised by the FATF, Dawn news reported.
However, he said, the FATF was the final authority to decide if the progress was enough to pull Pakistan out of the grey list, adding that the country would have to continue making progress in this direction.
The SBP, he said, had been constantly playing a role in curbing money laundering and terror financing which was in favour of the country.
Pakistan hopes to acquire US cooperation in next month’s FATF plenary to get off the grey list after a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Joint Group in Beijing last week was informed that Islamabad had addressed 22 points of its action plan, The Express Tribune said in a report.
In February 2018, the FATF had found serious deficiencies in Pakistan’s anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism regimes and gave Islamabad a 27-point action plan to exit the grey list.
Last October, it gave another warning to Islamabad to show full compliance by February 2020.
Now, the FATF plenary will take place in Paris next month and take a decision about Pakistan’s status on the grey list.
–IANS
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