Pakistan will remain on the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for another four months. 

The Paris-based global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog announced on Friday that it was retaining Pakistan on the grey list till June. The announcement was made on the fourth day of the virtual session in Paris.

It noted significant progress has been made in completing the required action items for removal from the list. In a statement, 

it added that since June 2018, when Pakistan made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and APG to strengthen its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) regime and to address its strategic counter-terrorist financing-related deficiencies, Pakistan’s continued political commitment has led to significant progress across a comprehensive CFT action plan.

“Pakistan has completed 26 of the 27 action items in its 2018 action plan,” it said.

The international watchdog said that in response to additional deficiencies later identified in Pakistan’s 2019 APG Mutual Evaluation Report (MER), in June 2021, Pakistan provided further high-level commitment to address these “strategic deficiencies pursuant to a new action plan that primarily focuses on combating money laundering.”

This week, the Plenary, took the formal decision to appoint T Raja Kumar of Singapore as the next President of the FATF, for a fixed two-year term.

The statement added member countries took this decision following a comprehensive process, led by the current FATF president and which included consultations with all delegations.

“A number of highly qualified candidates were put forward by the FATF membership, each presenting his/her priorities and vision for the future of the FATF,” it said.

As a result of this process, the FATF Plenary agreed to appoint Mr Kumar as the next President of the FATF. Kumar will take up his duties on 1 July 2022, the day after the two-year Presidency of Dr Marcus Pleyer concludes.