ISLAMABAD: Global financial crime watchdog the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will send its on-site mission to Pakistan sometime in September, a visit anticipated by diplomatic circles in Islamabad as a “final walk-through from the FATF process” for the country.

Though the date of the mission’s visit to Islamabad is being finalised through diplomatic channels, diplomatic circles believe it would take place in the early fall.

At its last month’s plenary in Berlin, the FATF made the initial determination that Pakistan had substantially completed its two action plans covering 34 items. It will now make an on-site visit to verify that the implementation of Pakistan’s anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) has begun and is sustained and that the necessary political commitment remains in place to sustain implementation and improvement in the future.

The diplomatic circles believe that Pakistan’s moving from the grey list to the white list of the FATF will help develop a new synergy and the international financial institutions will be able to help the government in overcoming economic and financial crunch.

In its annual report for 2020-21, the FATF noted that Pakistan had made significant progress in strengthening counterterrorism financing measures, as per its original action plan.

The FATF also worked with Pakistan to develop a new action plan, which includes demonstrating that financial supervisors conduct on-site and off-site checks on non-financial sector businesses and demonstrating an increase in money laundering investigations and prosecutions, including cases of overseas financing.

The walk-through from the FATF will also pave the way for friendly countries, further strengthening economic, trade and investment relations with Pakistan, particularly the western European countries.

Pakistan is also looking to expand bilateral economic relations with the United States, and it has been learnt that the Biden administration has identified six key areas to help Pakistan, including trade, investment, energy, water, climate change and education sectors.

From Washington on Friday, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai held a virtual meeting with Commerce Minister Syed Naveed Qamar to discuss matters for promoting US-Pakistan trade and investment relations.

Pakistan is currently the 56th largest goods trading partner of the United States, with two-way trade amounting to around $6.6 billion in 2019, according to US trade office statistics. Of that, US exports totalled $2.6bn while imports stood at $3.9bn, meaning the United States was in a deficit of 1.3bn.

The United States considers that there is no threat to food security in Pakistan. However, it wants to explore new ways and means to help the country in the agricultural sector, particularly in research for developing new varieties of major crops.

US State Department’s Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs Dilawar Syed visited Pakistan early this month and assured Islamabad that US companies could introduce new technologies and generate returns that would translate into higher incomes for local workers and capital for additional investments.

He said the US government was exploring concrete ways to build on that relationship to benefit both the countries against the backdrop of trade and investment cooperation that was an ongoing and essential part of the bilateral relationship.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2022