ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has strengthened its domestic laws to prevent money laundering and terror financing which are global problems that need to be tackled through mutual cooperation and strict preventive measures, said Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday.

He was addressing the 9th National Executive Commit­tee (NEC) meeting on anti-money laundering (AML) and reviewing Pakistan’s preparation for Mutual Evaluation due in 2018. The Mutual Evaluation is an international mechanism to assess AML and combating financing of terrorism (CFT) regime in a country.

Mr Dar said Pakistan now has a fully functional AML and CFT regime which is equi­­pped with legal and operational capabilities to meet international obligations.

He assured stakeholders of government’s full support in their efforts to combat money laundering.

The minister was briefed by Director General of Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) on the progress of implementation of decisions taken in the 8th NEC meeting as well as the preparations for the upcoming meeting of the Asia Pacific Group in United States in September 2016.

He was also briefed about the progress on National Risk Assessment.

The meeting was attended by Law Minister Zahid Hamid, Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz and Governor State Bank of Pakistan Ashraf Wathra.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2016