LAHORE Feb 20 (TNS): The Businessmen Panel (BMP) of the FPCCI on Tuesday said Pakistan made significant progress in improving its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime and also established the legal and regulatory framework to meet its commitments in its action plan regarding the strategic deficiencies that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had identified in June 2010.
In a joint statement, BMP Secretary General’s of Punjab and Federal Area, Mian Usman Zulfiqar and Ahmad Jawad said on FATF that is taking up a US-sponsored resolution to put Pakistan on a list of countries that financially aid terrorism and any move to place Pakistan on the watch list would enhance scrutiny level of the financial transactions which the country’s banking sector would undertake with the rest of the world.
This will increase the cost of opening letter of credits (LC) for trade purposes. The negative decision by FATF will have the force to affect the international credit ratings, which will in turn increase cost of borrowings for the government, they added.
“The BMP officials further said that on proposed US listing in FATF, terming the measure as an insult to Pakistan’s sacrifices in the war on terror”.
“We bore the burden of the war on our own, the whole world is witness to our struggle for the eradication of terrorism and such measure to blacklist Pakistan is part of propaganda to economically destabilise our country”.
The Trump administration should know that Pakistan was committed to strengthening its framework and institution to improve the Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime in the country. In this regard government has already set-up a financial monitoring unit at the State Bank of Pakistan and the banking sector has continually enhanced its reporting of suspicious transactions to the unit; BMP added.
They further viewed instead of putting international pressure to place Pakistan on a watch-list, international institutions should support the country in strengthening its domestic institutions by sharing international best practices and lessons learnt from other jurisdictions.
It may recall here a FATF is an inter-governmental organisation that was established in 1989 and comprises 35 member states, the European Commission and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Its recommendations are deemed to be the international standard for steps required for AML/CFT
At present, the 11 jurisdictions are on the high risk and monitoring list of the FATF, which include North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka, etc. Pakistanhas remained on the FATF grey list from 2009 to 2015.
