Paris: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is likely to keep neighbouring country Pakistan on its grey list till February 2020 confirmed the terror watchdog today.
The announcement was made after the international terror watchdog was unhappy and with Pakistan’s unsatisfactory measures taken to control money laundering and terror financing activities, TN reports.
In its meeting today, FATF said, “Strongly urge Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2020 otherwise should significant and sustainable progress not be made across the full range of its action plan by next Plenary, the FATF will take action including urging members to advise their financial institutions to give special attention to business relations/transactions with Pakistan.”
The organization had decided to keep Pakistan on its grey list for another four to five months and directed Islamabad to take “extra measures” for the “complete elimination” of terror financing and money laundering. The formal announcement of it will be made at 12 pm (local time) today.
Paris, China, Turkey and Malaysia had appreciated the steps taken by Pakistan to deal with terror financing and requested for the extra time given to Pakistan to take further measures in the FATF meeting earlier this week which attended by 206 countries.
A Pakistani delegation led by Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar asserted that the nation has implemented 20 out of the 27 points and is making positive progress in implementing the action plan.
Once any country falls in the black list of the international watchdog, it becomes difficult for that country to get financial aid from global money lenders like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.