Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said the United Kingdom removed Pakistan from its list of High-Risk Third Countries in recognition of Pakistan’s effective measures against money laundering and financing terrorism,
The FM took to Twitter to share the achievement, saying: “Some good news. The United Kingdom has officially removed Pakistan from its list of High-Risk Third Countries following our early completion of FATF action plans.”
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He also posted the official document. “His Majesty’s Treasury issued an amendment to the UK’s High-Risk Third Countries’ list on November 14, 2022, through a Statuary Instrument. The amendment removes Pakistan from the list in accordance with the decision taken by the FATF on October 21, 2022,” the official document read.
“The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office recognizes the progress Pakistan has made to improve money laundering and terrorist financing controls.
Earlier, The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) the world’s money laundering and terror-financing watchdog said that Pakistan has been removed from the grey list and is no longer subject to its increased monitoring process.
The Paris-based inter-governmental body had put Pakistan on its grey list of untrustworthy jurisdictions in June 2018 because of “strategic counter-terrorist financing-related deficiencies.”
FATF President Raja Kumar, in his press conference at the conclusion of its plenary, stated that Pakistan had been on the grey list since 2018.
He said: “It has two concurrent action plans. After a lot of work by Pakistani authorities, they have largely addressed all of the action plan items.”
Kumar maintained that the task force had conducted an onsite visit at the end of August. “The onsite team verified that there is a high level of commitment from the Pakistani leadership, sustainability of reforms and commitment to make improvements in the future,” he added.