Hina Rabbani Khar, the state minister for foreign affairs, is in Paris to attend a meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).On Monday, the delegation from Pakistan travelled to Paris under the direction of the minister and met with Jean-Louis Bourlanges, the head of the foreign affairs committee of the French National Assembly.
At the discussion, topics such as parliamentary cooperation, floods in Pakistan, climate change, and regional and international concerns were covered. Khar also had a meeting with a group of French intellectuals, think tank participants, and academics at the Pakistani Embassy in Paris.
The Paris-based global dirty money watchdog announced that the first FATF Plenary under T Raja Kumar’s two-year Singaporean presidency would take place on October 20-21, 2022.
The Working Group and Plenary sessions in Paris will be attended by representatives of the 206 Global Network members and observer organisations, such as the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, Interpol, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
Decisions of the plenary would be made public after the two days of discussion. The plenary will concentrate on nations that have been recognized as posing a danger to the global financial system in addition to other significant subjects.
To stop the use of shell firms and other opaque structures to launder illegal funds, there will be recommendations on how to enhance beneficial ownership transparency as well as an update on public declarations that designate jurisdictions as high risk or being subject to more surveillance.
In June 2018, Pakistan was added to a list of countries with increased monitoring due to shortcomings in its legal, financial, regulatory, investigations, prosecution, judicial, and non-government sectors in the fight against money laundering and countering terrorism financing, both of which are serious threats to the world financial system.
