APG’s report supports Pakistan to retain in FATF’s grey list?

October 8, 2019 (MLN): The Asia-Pacific Group of Money Laundering (APG), has adopted Pakistan’s Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) in its 22nd Annual Meeting held in Canberra, Australia from 18-23 August 2019, which has now been uploaded on APG’s website as per procedure. Pakistan’s senior level delegation headed by the Governor State Bank of Pakistan attended the APG Annual Meeting in Canberra.

APG has published this report which says that Pakistan complied with 36 out of the 40 parameters, set by the FATF when country was included in the grey list.

Pakistan’s Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) provides a summary of the AML/CFT measures in place in Pakistan till October 2018. Since then, Pakistan has made considerable progress to address the deficiencies identified in the MER including updation of National Risk Assessment on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions (implementation of UNSCR 1267 and UNSCR-1373), AML/CFT supervisory measures by SBP and SECP, efforts to establish AML/CFT supervisory framework for CDNS and Pakistan Post, efforts for bringing DNFBPs in AML/CFT domain, Counter-Terrorism Departments of Provincial Police have been designated as investigating and prosecuting agency under the AML Act, 2010, TF risk assessment of NPO Sector, enhancement of capacity building for stakeholders, actions taken by LEAs on ML/TF cases, effectiveness of international cooperation, amendments in some laws relating to AML/CFT to make them more compatible with international standards, FMU’s Egmont Group Membership, improvement in FMU’s analytical functions, fully functional goAML analytical tool, FMU’s MoUs with foreign countries, effective international cooperation on ML & TF.

Simultaneously, an internal action plan has also been developed for phase-wise implementation of the recommended actions on the basis of MER recommended actions.

According to APG’s procedures, Pakistan would submit quarterly progress reports to APG on the implementation of APG recommended actions and would also claim upgradation in the ratings of recommendations in which substantial progress has been made as per APG procedures. Till now the APG members whose recommendations were upgraded include Bangladesh (6), Bhutan (14), Cambodia (3), Fiji (20), Myanmar (2), Samoa (4), Sri Lanka (15), Thailand (2) and Vanuatu (29).

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