Asia-Pacific Group keeps Pak on 'Enhanced Follow-Up' list

<p id="content">The Asia-Pacific Group (APG) on money laundering has retained Pakistan on its "Enhanced Follow-Up" list for a meagre progress on technical recommendations of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the media reported on Monday.

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The first Follow-Up Report (FUR) on Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan released by APG, a regional affiliate of the FATF, showed Pakistan improving its full compliance on two of the 40 FATF recommendations on the effectiveness of anti-money laundering and combating financing terror (AML/CFT) system, Dawn news reported.

"Pakistan will remain in enhanced (expedited) follow up, and will continue to report back to the APG on progress to strengthen its implementation of AML/CFT measures," the APG said in its 12-page report.

While the APG report has come a weeks before FATF's virtual review meeting scheduled to be held from October 21 to 23, it has no immediate bearing on the upcoming assessment of Pakistan whether it should be retained or moved out of the grey list.

The APG's performance review is based on the country's performance as of February this year on technical recommendations.

According to reports, Pakistan has so far made robust progress on 27 action points, including necessary legislation in 15 areas, reports Dawn news.

The 41-member APG had adopted the third Mutual Evaluation Report on Pakistan during the August 13-18 meetings in Canberra, Australia and downgraded the country to "Enhanced Follow-up" category over technical deficiencies to meet normal international financial standards by October 2018.

As a result, Pakistan has since been required to submit quarterly progress reports, instead of biannual, to the APG, to show improvements in its technical standards on AML/CFT..