The Pakistani delegation has reached Paris, France to attend the Working Group and Plenary meetings of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Paris, France scheduled for this week.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar and her cohort arrived in the French capital on Monday to oversee deliberations on the subject of Pakistan’s removal from the anti-money laundering watchdog’s increased monitoring list or grey list.
The delegation met with the President of the French National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Commission, Jean-Louis Bourlanges. They discussed bilateral relations between Pakistan and France, parliamentary collaboration, floods in Pakistan, climate change, and regional and global matters.
Hina Rabbani Khar and her team also met with a group of French intellectuals, think tank members, and scholars at the Pakistani Embassy in Paris. The Pakistani side is expected to attend a meeting of the FATF today.
The first FATF Plenary under T. Raja Kumar’s two-year Singapore Presidency will take place on October 20-21, 2022. Panelists from 206 Global Network members and observer organizations, including the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the World Bank, Interpol, and the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, will attend the Working Group and Plenary meetings in Paris.
Delegates will discuss key issues in the fight against money laundering and terror financing, including a report about the money laundering risks linked to fentanyl.
The decision on Pakistan’s status would be announced at the end of the two-day deliberations. It is expected that the FATF Onsite team’s report on Pakistan will be discussed at the plenary meetings.
It is noteworthy that the FATF found Pakistan largely compliant on all 34 points in June this year and decided to send an onsite mission to verify it on the ground before formally announcing the country’s exit from the grey list, which occurred in August and September.
Pakistan was officially placed on the FATF grey list for the third time on June 28, 2018, and it has since taken measures for its exclusion from the list.
