FATF blacklisting will ruin Pakistan's economy, warns PM Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned that if Pakistan is blacklisted at the FATF or Financial Action Task Force then Pakistan's economy will be destroyed due to inflation and a massive fall in Pakistani Rupee. 

Speaking to a private news channel, Khan said, "If Pakistan is put on FATF's blacklist, then like Iran, deals will end. No international financial institutions will deal with us."

Explaining further, Khan said, "It will impact the Pakistani Rupee and when Rupee starts to fall, we do not know how much it will fall. We do not have foreign reserves to save the Rupee. When rupee falls, everything will become costly--electricity, gas and Oil. Once we are on the blacklist, our entire economy will be destroyed due to inflation."

Pakistan has been on FATF's grey list for the last 2 years even as it has been given a number of deadlines to full fill its commitments to improve transparency in financial dealings and take action on the financing of terrorism. 

Khan blamed India for trying to push his country on the blacklist. He said, "If we go on the blacklist, Pakistan will be destroyed as India has been trying to do. Who is trying to put us on the blacklist? Its India. For 2 years, India has been trying to blacklist Pakistan by lobbying with the international community."

FATF calls for transparent financial controls so that money is not used for financing of terror or money laundering. The Paris based body will meet in October and on the agenda will be future actions related to Pakistan's listing. 

After last year's meet, the grouping had called on Pakistan to "demonstrate" effective implementation of financial sanctions against all United Nation's 1267 committee designated international terrorists among other things. The list includes Pulwama attack mastermind Masood Azhar and 1993 Mumbai blast mastermind Dawood Ibrahim.

According to estimates by the Pakistani government, the FATF grey listing of Pakistan is causing damage of around USD 10 billion annually to the country.