ISLAMABAD, Dec 6: Pakistan has assured the United Nations that laws to combat money laundering are being finalized and will be enforced after their approval by the federal cabinet and parliament in early 2004.

“The draft of the anti-money laundering laws has just been reviewed by the concerned

officials, including prominent constitutional and legal expert Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada,

and will soon be presented first in the cabinet and then in parliament for final approval,” said Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Talking to Dawn here on Saturday, he said he had informed the visiting UN Security Council’s seven-member Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee on Friday that inputs of the State Bank of Pakistan and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) were being collected to finalize the anti-money laundering laws.

These laws, he said, were expected to be approved and implemented early next year and that Pakistan, as one of the important countries supporting the international community against terrorism, would fulfil its responsibilities to ensure that there were no dubious financial transactions in the country.

“I told the UN committee that we have recently frozen the assets of some militant groups and other such groups are now being investigated and their assets will also

be seized,” the finance minister said. The UN committee had also separately met Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri and Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat on Friday.

“But I told them that the developed countries would also have to ensure that there is

no inflow of questionable funds to developing countries,” he added.

Mr Aziz said it was an equal responsibility of the developed world to tap drug and bribed money and halt terrorist financing.

“This is the job of both the developed and developing countries to harness their efforts to achieve the desired results,” he said, adding that it would be unfair to expect the developing countries like Pakistan to eliminate doubtful financial deals on their own.

Earlier, he said, he had briefed the senior officials of the World Bank and the IMF who appreciated that Pakistan was adequately fulfilling its responsibilities to check questionable financial deals, including terrorist financing through banks and investment companies.

“My message to the UN committee was that let us work together and adopt a proactive approach to deal with this serious issue.”

The finance minister said he had briefed the United Nations committee about the operations of the commercial banks and the investment companies. These institutions, he said, were discouraging dubious transactions.