APG adopts mutual evaluation report

ISLAMABAD: The Asia-Pacific Group on money laundering (APG), during its 22nd annual meeting held in Canberra, Australia, adopted Pakistan’s third mutual evaluation report (MER), finance ministry said on Wednesday.

A senior level delegation from Pakistan headed by Governor State Bank of Pakistan Reza Baqir attended the proceedings of the meeting during which the report was adopted. The APG annual meeting started on August 18 and would continue till August 23, 2019. The MER covers the period from February to October 2018 and identifies a number of areas where further actions are required to strengthen the anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) framework.

The report does not cover the areas in which the government of Pakistan made substantial progress since October 2018. In the discussions, the Pakistan’s delegation welcomed engagement with the international community in its efforts to countering terrorism and money laundering.

The delegation briefed APG members on the steps taken in recent times for improving its AML/CFT framework as well as the actions for ensuring effective implementation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Action Plan.

The Pakistan’s delegation also held a number of bilateral meetings with key delegations to brief them on recent progress by Pakistan in implementing the FATF action plan.