Threat of being blacklisted by FATF averted: Hammad Azhar

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Industries and Production Hammad Azhar has said that Pakistan has complied with 90 percent of Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) Action Plan and rest will be completed by June this year.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, the minister for industries and production said that Pakistan has so for completed compliance with 24 out of 27 action points of the FATF. He said Pakistan will come out of the grey list after compliance of the remaining three points.
He said that the last three tasks required by Pakistan focus on “non-profit organisations’ regulation” and will require “tougher measures”.
He said that Pakistan was given the most challenging action plan of the world, but it vigorously pursued to comply with the plan which was also recognised by the international community in FAFT’s plenaries. He said that Pakistan is determined to act against money laundering and terror financing.
Highlighting the government’s commitment in fulfilling the objectives, the minister said that Pakistan had the option to not report back to FATF during the coronavirus pandemic but it still did so. “We had the option to not report during the coronavirus pandemic [but] Pakistan fulfilled its objectives during the difficult times of coronavirus,” said Azhar. He termed the country’s performance as “exemplary”.
Answering a question, Hammad Azhar said India misused FATF platform to push Pakistan into the black list, but due to the government’s concerted efforts of implementing the action plan, black list has not been an option for Pakistan now.
He assured the nation that the threat of Pakistan being blacklisted by the FATF had been averted. “We want to reassure the nation that the threat of blacklisting Pakistan has been averted,” said the federal minister. He explained that when the action plan was announced, the first objective was to ensure that Pakistan avoided the blacklist.- TLTP