FATF satisfied by Pakistan's compliance on action plan: report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s performance on the action plan given by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has reportedly satisfied the global watchdog, it emerged Thursday.

The Pakistani team, headed by Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar, has “defended country’s compliance report during the joint group of FATF meeting held at Beijing, China,” The News reported.

“The watchdog showed satisfaction over Pakistan's report of compliance,” the publication said. 

The Indian side had to face embarrassment as the US and European countries did not extend their support to their “tough but mostly irrelevant questions” during the joint group meeting.

"The ongoing meeting went very well. This time the attitude of the US and the European Union countries remained supportive and except India no other country raised questions on Pakistan’s compliance," The News claimed.

The Pakistani team will remain standby to further defend the report if required to do so today (Thursday). “If the joint group of FATF demanded any further documents or annexures of any point, the Pakistani side would be ready to reply to them,” according to The News.

Official sources said that Pakistan would now focus on mustering up more diplomatic support of voting members of FATF’s plenary meeting. In order to avoid the blacklist, Pakistan requires the support of three countries. For coming out of grey and landing into the white list, Islamabad needs 12 votes out of a total of 39.

There is a possibility of a third scenario that Pakistan might continue into the grey list for another 3 to 6 month period. After getting the support of the US, the chances have emerged that Pakistan might be excluded from the grey list and placed into the safest white list.

Originally published in www.thenews.com.pk