ISLAMABAD: World Bank (WB) Country Director (CD) Patchamuthu Illangovan said that Pakistan needs to take further steps to curb terror financing and stop money laundering in order to get itself removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) greylist.

The WB CD also said that Pakistan was added back to the list because it had failed to take necessary action pertaining to anti-terror financing measures.

He said, “Pakistan went back into the greylist because its progress slowed down.”

“Everyone understood that Pakistan’s new government under Prime Minister Imran Khan, too, has acknowledged the necessity of quick measures to stabilise the economy,” he added.

“It is not advisable for me to speculate on the FATF and the Asia Pacific Group [on Money Laundering], how they intend to start their work in Pakistan or what their strategy would be,” he explained.

He stressed, “I believe further measures are required as is the need to take a decisive action in the upcoming months.”

Earlier on August 15, a then-visiting delegation of the Asia Pacific Group (APG) was set to complete its review of Pakistan’s implementation of action plan issued by the FATF to counter terror-financing after the forum put Pakistan on its ‘grey-list’ in June this year.

A finance ministry official had said that the delegation is expected to meet with the then-caretaker finance minister Shamshad Akhtar to have a wind-up session after going through a checklist of 26 actionable points with other stakeholders, including the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) of the State Bank of Pakistan, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and representatives of the ministries of foreign affairs and interior.