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A two-day meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will be held in Bangkok (Thailand) from September 9-10 to discuss Pakistan's progress report, which would form the basis of a definitive decision on Pakistan's fate in October. Sources told this correspondent that the Bangkok meeting would be critical in deciding whether Pakistan remains on the grey list or is blacklisted.

The mutual evaluation by the APG, sources further revealed, has identified a number of areas of concern including activities of non-financial sectors as well as certain professions where a risk based approach may be applied examples include real estate, gems and jewelers. Pakistan has been asked to prepare a framework for registration of real estate and gems and jewelry outlets owing to the prospect of their being used for money laundering. APG's mutual evaluation also emphasized the need for effective coordination between the relevant authorities at federal and provincial and district levels to deal with money laundering and combating financing of terrorism.

The government claims that it has made considerable progress in complying with the FATF recommendations particularly during the period after April 2019. An official of the finance ministry said, "We are confident on the basis of measures taken from April 2019 onward that Pakistan would be downgraded by the FATF." The official added that progress by the country has been acknowledged by the US delegation especially on the government's effort to crackdown money launderers and combating financing of terrorism (AML/CFT).

The official claimed that Pakistan has initiated lobbying to block any move against Pakistan, possibly by India, to get it blacklisted. The present government has taken various measures against money laundering and FATF cell has been established in federal board of revenue to ensure effective and timely implementation of measures against terror financing through currency smuggling.

Anti-money laundering measures implemented by Pakistan include: (i) installation of Global Travelers Assessment System (GTAS) at airports and to set up National Targeting Centre to issue currency/passenger alerts to law enforcement agencies (LEAs); (ii) establishment of National Targeting Centre; and (iii) establishment of National Single Window (NSW) programme for enforcement agencies, which would identify trends in the movement of passengers, currency & other contrabands and will also generate alerts for teams to take preventive measures proactively. Additional measures include establishment of Directorate General of Customs Intelligence and DG Intelligence and Investigation Inland Revenue.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019


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