ISLAMABAD: The six-day 22nd annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering is being held in Canberra, Australia.
A senior-level delegation from Pakistan, headed by State Bank of Pakistan Governor Dr Reza Baqir, attended the meeting, which commenced on August 18th and would conclude on the 23rd.
The meeting adopted Pakistan’s third Mutual Evaluation Report (MER). The MER covers the period from February till October 2018 and identifies a number of areas where further actions are required to strengthen the AML/CFT framework. The report does not cover the areas in which the government has made substantial progress since October 2018.
During the discussions, the Pakistani delegation welcomed the engagement of the international community in its efforts to counter money laundering in the country. The delegation briefed the APG members on the steps taken in recent times to improve the country’s AML/CFT framework, besides measures to ensure effective implementation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Action Plan.
The Pakistani delegation also held a number of bilateral meetings with key delegations to brief them on the recent progress made by Pakistan in the implementation of the FATF Action Plan.
As Pakistan is a member of the APG since 2000. APG is a regional body of FATF that requires its members to undergo mutual evaluation on the compliance of its anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) framework with FATF recommendations.
During the meetings, Pakistan’s Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) also signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring and Analysis Center (CAMLAC) for exchange of financial intelligence.
