Stepping up further pressure on Pakistan to act tough on terrorist establishments operating from its soil, a team of international experts has arrived in the country to take first-hand stock of the situation and examine the efforts Pakistan is making to block terror financing through money laundering and illegal remittances, a media report said on Monday.

A news report in Dawn said a panel of Asia Pacific Group (APG), an arm of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) arrived in Islamabad on Sunday night to begin a 12-day ‘on-site inspection’ of Pakistan.

The team will review systems, networks, and mechanisms of various institutions and agencies to ascertain if Pakistan was following through on its global commitment to getting out of the FATF greylist.

The on-site inspection will verify actions taken and progress made by Pakistan to combat terrorism and dismantle the various networks.

The APG delegation comprises experts from Britain’s Scotland Yard, US Department of Treasury, Financial Intelligence Unit of Maldives, Indonesian Ministry of Finance, Peoples’ Bank of China, and the Justice Department of Turkey.

The FATF decided in February to place Pakistan on its grey list in June on a campaign pushed through by the US and its European allies for allegedly not doing enough to ban UN and Washington designated religious organisations and rein in their activities.

The ministries of interior, finance, foreign affairs and law besides the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), National Counter-Terrorism Authority (Nacta), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU), Central Directorate of National Savings and provincial counter-terrorism departments would remain available for briefings and explanations.

Last week, the government announced that it had finalised amendments to relevant laws that would be presented to the Prime Minister and his cabinet for approval, reported Dawn.

The former government negotiated a 10-point action plan to meet about 40 standards of the FATF by September 2019 to get out of the grey list.

(With agency inputs)