Pakistan and the United States vowed to restructure bilateral ties and focus more on promoting private sector and investment relationship.  The development came into being in a meeting of US Ambassador Charge d’Affaires, Paul W Jones with Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh in Islamabad.

The meeting discussed bilateral ties and underlined the need to further expand the scope of cooperation for the mutual benefits of the two countries.

The Adviser briefed the envoy about the steps being taken by the government for macroeconomic stabilisation and putting the economy on a sound footing.

He also apprised the Ambassador about the measures being taken by the government with reference to its international commitment on FATF.

It may be noted that the coming FATF Plenary and Working Group meetings in Orlando, Florida, scheduled for June 16-21, would be crucial for Pakistan to get rid of the grey list or fall into the black list having serious economic repercussions.

The Orlando plenary will actually set the stage for Pakistan’s future even though a formal announcement would come out at the next FATF plenary due in Paris on October 18-23, he said.

Apart from technical compliance, Pakistan needs to launch an aggressive diplomatic effort over the next four weeks to secure enough support and votes to exit the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog on anti-money laundering (AML) and combating financing terror (CFT).  The Adviser mentioned that Pakistan had a long history of relationship with the United States of America and both sides were required to further promote linkages between the people of the two countries.

News Network International