The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Thursday announced that Pakistan will continue to remain on its grey.

Pakistan has been on the grey list for deficiencies in its counter-terror financing and anti-money laundering regimes since June 2018.

The decision was announced on Thursday at the conclusion of the three-day plenary session of the FATF to discuss key issues.

Announcing the decision FATF President Dr Marcus Pleyer said that Pakistan remains under increased monitoring (grey list). Islamabad has two concurrent action plans, with a total of 34 action plan items and it has now addressed or largely addressed 30 of the items.

The FATF acknowledged Pakistan’s continued political commitment, which led to significant progress across a comprehensive CFT Action Plan and encouraged Pakistan to report further progress on investigation and prosecution.

“Overall Pakistan is making good progress on this new action plan four of the seven action items are addressed or largely addressed,” he said.

Regarding the 2018 action plan focusing on the terror financing issue, Dr Marcus said Pakistan has taken a number of important steps but it needs to further demonstrate that investigation and prosecution have been pursued against the senior leadership of UN-designated terror groups.

“I thank the Pakistani government for their continued strong commitment to this process.”

The Plenary meeting decided to maintain status quo with respect to Pakistan, for the time being.

Considerable work has already been carried out on remaining items of both Action Plans. FATF will undertake next review of Pakistan’s Progress in February 2022.

Earlier in June this year, the FATF while expressing satisfaction over Pakistan’s progress and appreciating the high-level political commitment to work with global and regional anti-money laundering watchdogs, had retained Pakistan on its grey list .

FATF President Dr Marcus Pleyer had said that Pakistan has made significant progress and it has largely addressed 26 out of 27 measures, however, that the action plan on financial terrorism still needed to be addressed.