New Delhi: Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi alleged that the country could be blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force, due to “lobbying by India”.  He said that the country could suffer up to USD 10 billion annual loss if it continues to remain in the FATF’s grey list.

Qureshi  was quoted saying: “Pakistan’s Foreign Office is calculating the annual loss if the country is blacklisted by the watchdog as India is lobbying for this,” by agencies.

The Pakistan government has calculated that the country will face USD 10 billion loss annually if it remains in the ‘grey list’, Qureshi said on Monday.

It was in June last year, when the FATF had put Pakistan on the ‘grey list’ of countries whose domestic laws are weak to tackle the challenges of money laundering and terrorism financing.

Recently, a group of experts from the FATF had visited Pakistan to review whether it has made enough progress on global standards against financial crimes to buy its exclusion from the grey list.

During the three-day visit of FATF to Islamabad in the last week of March, a delegation of the Asia-Pacific Group (APG) on money laundering, a regional affiliate of the FATF, expressed serious reservations over insufficient physical actions on ground against banned groups to block flow of funds and activities.

The FATF is working to curb terrorism financing and money laundering and has asked Pakistan to reassess the operation of banned terrorist outfits in the country.

Pakistan is facing extreme international pressure to act against terror groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) which perpetrated the Pulwama terror attack in Kashmir.

The visiting team members reportedly raised questions over specific and on-ground actions against each of the eight organisations proscribed under international requirements. It wanted break-up of suspected transaction report against each banned outfit and specific actions taken against each entity. The team members said that activities of banned organisations and non-profit organisations are still unchecked at the provincial, district and grass roots level where they can still raise funds and hold meetings and rallies.

The FATF noted that Pakistan had revised its terror financing risk assessment but did not demonstrate a proper understanding of the terror financing risks posed by the Islamic State group, Al-Qaeda, Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), Falah-i-Insaniat (FIF), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Haqqani Network and persons affiliated with the Taliban.