Pakistan was retained in the “grey list” of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which examined its efforts to counter terror financing and money laundering. The decision was taken at the meeting of the multilateral watchdog on Thursday.

“Pakistan should continue to work on implementing the three remaining items in its action plan to address its strategically important deficiencies, namely by: demonstrating that TF investigations and prosecutions target persons and entities acting on behalf or at the direction of designated persons or entities; demonstrating that TF prosecutions result in effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions and demonstrating effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions against all 1267 and 1373 designated terrorists, specifically those acting for or on their behalf,” the FATF said in a statement.

The anti-terror financing organisation noted that Islamabad has largely addressed 24 of the 27 action items and gave Islamabad time till June 2021 to complete the full action plan.

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FATF president Marcus Pleyer said that Pakistan has made “significant progress” but “some serious deficiencies remain” and all these deficiencies are “in the realm of terror financing”. Pleyer added that Pakistan “remains under increased monitoring”.

Reacting to the FATF decision, Federal Minister Hammad Azhar said Pakistan had completed “almost 90 per cent” of its current FATF action plan with 24 out of 27 items rated as ‘largely addressed’ and the remaining three items ‘partially addressed’.

“FATF has acknowledged Pakistan’s high-level political commitment since 2018 that led to significant progress. It was also noted by FATF member countries that Pakistan is subject to perhaps the most challenging & comprehensive action plan ever given to any country,” he tweeted, saying the country was also subject to dual evaluation processes of FATF with differing timelines.

MOROCCO, SENEGAL ON GREY LIST:

The FATF during its plenary kept North Korea and Iran as the only two countries on its blacklist but added four new places to its watch list for increased monitoring, according to Pleyer.

The countries added to the grey list are Morocco, Burkina Faso, Senegal and the Cayman Islands.

With the four additions, the list now has 19 countries and territories that FATF said were only partially fulfilling international rules for fighting terrorism financing and money laundering.