Business community hails country’s removal from FATF ‘grey list’

LAHORE: The Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s United Business Group Saturday hailing the decision of the Financial Action Task Force excluding Pakistan from its inglorious grey list said it will herald an era of economic stability and boosting exports.

Chairing UBG meeting here on Saturday it’s Chairman Shahzad Ali Malik, Sitara-I-Imtiaz said that it’s good omen The Financial Action Task Force has excluded Pakistan from the grey list of global watchdog on terror financing and money laundering after four years, in a major setback to India which has maintained that Pakistan had to take verifiable and irreversible steps to fight terrorism.

He said as a result of FATF decision the economic activities will be accelerated and will help greatly to restore the confidence of investors across the globe. Bearing the cost of global politics, due to this restriction, Pakistan sustained a loss of US$38 billion to its GDP from 2009-2019.

He said the FATF retained Pakistan on its grey list meaning no respite for the nation as it looks for financial aid amid the pandemic. It was difficult for a country to get financial aid from international organisation like IMF.

He said Pakistan will welcome multinationals for foreign direct investment and joint ventures in their areas and sectors of interests and especially in IT, petroleum, minerals, agriculture, medical and engineering etc. He said Nature has blessed Pakistan with abundant natural and minerals resources which can be fully exploited to maximum extent in collaboration with foreign investors.

Shahzad Ali Malik said, “Pakistan is no longer subject to FATF’s increased monitoring process; to continue to work with APG (Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering) to further improve its AML/CFT (Anti-Money Laundering & Counter-Terrorist Financing) system.”

He said it was happy note that FATF itself acknowledged that Pakistan “strengthened effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime and addressed technical deficiencies to meet commitments of its action plans regarding strategic deficiencies that FATF identified.” Pakistan had lobbied hard with the West, especially the US, to exit the FATF grey list. It was put in the list in 2018 for “failure to check risk of money laundering, leading to corruption and terror financing.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022