Friday, 22 october, 2021 i 15 Rabi-ul-awwal, 1443 i Rs 15.00 i Vol Xii No 113 i 12 Pages i lahore Edition
FATF decides To keep pAkisTAn on grey lisT islamabad
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staff report
HE Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has decided to keep Pakistan on the grey list. Announcing the decision, FATF President Dr Marcus Pleyer said that Pakistan had to complete two concurrent action plans with a total of 34 items. “It has now addressed or largely addressed 30 of the items,” he said. “Its most recent action plan from June this year, which largely focused on money laundering deficiencies, was issued after the FATF’s regional partner — the Asia Pacific Group — identified a number of serious issues.” “Overall, Pakistan is making good progress on this new action plan. Four out of the seven items are now addressed or largely addressed,” he added. In a statement, the Finance Division said that the FATF had recognised the “considerable progress” made by Pak-
istan on both the action plans. The statement said that Pakistan had completed four of the seven items on the 2021 action plan, adding that these were completed “much before” the timelines prescribed by the FATF. It said that progress on the remaining three items was “well underway” and the aim
was to complete them ahead of the timelines set by the financial watchdog. “The action items that have been completed include amendments in the Mutual Legal Assistance Act, 2020, AML/CFT [anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism] supervision of designated non-financial
Pakistan pledges Rs 5 billion assistance to avert crisis in afghanistan islamabad mian abrar
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi announced on Thursday that Pakistan will give humanitarian assistance worth Rs5 billion to Afghanistan to help avert humanitarian crisis in the war-torn neighbouring state. Speaking to the media after a day-long visit to Kabul, the minister said: “If they need medicines at hospitals […] or whatever else their priorities are, they will tell us and we will be ready to give them humanitarian assistance in-kind.” During the press conference, Qureshi said that the Afghan government recognised and were “thankful” for how Pakistan had helped them in times of difficulty and the way the country had housed refugees for decades. “Right now there is a transition, there are challenges and to overcome that, Pakistan will play whatever role it needs to play,” he said. The foreign minister said that the high-level delegation that accompanied him on the trip also included officials from different ministries and institutions. “The point of taking [the delegation] was so that after the main discussion, they would break off into sub-groups and hammer out the details of different issues related to visas, trade and border movement.” He said that to follow-up on the issues discussed during today’s meet, a Taliban delegation will visit Islamabad in the next few days. Qureshi said that the Taliban leadership also assured their complete support on projects of interest, including the CASA-1000 project, the TAPI
gas pipeline project and the Transnational Railway project. Commenting on various other decisions made during the meeting, the minister said that Pakistan authorities would no longer require Afghans crossing the border to obtain a “gate pass” from the interior ministry. He said that Pakistan will allow the duty-free import of fruits and vegetables from Afghanistan to facilitate bilateral trade and border crossings will remain open 24/7 for trade. He also announced that Afghan businessmen will now be able to get a visa-on-arrival, adding that the embassy in Kabul had also been authorised to issue five-year visas to businessmen. Qureshi also said that the Afghan leadership had assured the Pakistani delegation that it would not allow anyone to use its soil against Pakistan, including the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). ViSiT To KaBul: Earlier today, Qureshi had arrived in Kabul, leading a high-level delegation to meet with Afghan officials and leaders on bilateral relations and ways to strengthen cooperation, the Foreign Office (FO) said in a statement. Footage released by state broadcaster Associated Press of Pakistan showed Qureshi disembarking the plane, followed by Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed. They were received by Afghanistan’s Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Pakistan Ambassador to Kabul Mansoor Ahmad Khan at the airport’s tarmac.
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Take one for the team: SBP governor tells middle class State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Dr Reza Baqir has said that while people who use imported products and can somewhat manage to travel abroad for vacations will find it difficult to downgrade their standard of living, overseas Pakistanis and their families will benefit from the ongoing depreciation of the Pakistani rupee against the US dollar. The remarks were made by the central bank chief in a press conference in Manchester, United Kingdom (UK) on Thursday. “Obviously people with the power to purchase expensive imported items, the ones who can afford vacations abroad, will face some difficulty,” Baqir said. “Rising dollar rates benefit some people and harm others. Overseas Pakistanis benefit because their family members receive more remittances. We should not forget those who benefit,” the exIMF official added. “In every economic policy, some people benefit while others do not, so it should also be taken into account how many people have benefited.”
“Suppose if our remittances in this year reach $30 billion — we hope they will be even more — and if our exchange rate [against the dollar] in the last few months has depreciated even 10 per cent then an additional $3bn are reaching the families of overseas Pakistanis — this turns out to be more than Rs500bn.” He said the “additional money” is being sent to Pakistanis in the country, reiterating that every economic policy of the government proves to be beneficial for some, while not for others. The SBP chief also talked about the country’s economic situation and said GDP growth had been recorded at close to 4pc in the fiscal year that ended in June. “Real GDP growth means that people’s income increased 4pc more compared to inflation,” he said. It is pertinent to mention here that a sizable amount of Pakistan’s population is middle class.
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businesses and professions (DNFBPs), transparency of beneficial ownership information and implementation of targeted financial sanctions for proliferation finance by DNFBPs,” the statement said. The remaining items in the 2021 action plan include investigation and prosecution of money laundering cases, confiscation of assets and UN listings, it added. Regarding the single item remaining on the 2018 action plan, the Finance Division said that Pakistan had submitted a comprehensive progress report in this regard. “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,” the statement said. The Finance Division noted that “considerable work” has been carried out on the remaining items of both action
plans, adding that the FATF will review Pakistan’s progress in February 2022. Commenting on the action plan devised in 2018 which focused on terror financing, the FATF president said that Pakistan was still assessed to have largely addressed 26 out of 27 items. “Pakistan has taken a number of important steps but needs to further demonstrate that investigations and prosecutions are being pursued against the senior leadership of UN designated terror groups,” he said. Responding to a question about whether Pakistan would be blacklisted for its failure to act against those on the UN terrorism list, Dr Pleyer said that the country had completed 30 items out of 34 on two action plans. “This shows the clear commitment of the Pakistani government so there is no discussion on blacklisting Pakistan and the FATF urges the country to address the remaining four items,” he said, adding that the government was cooperating with the financial watchdog.