Ending the speculations, Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on 21 October excluded Pakistan from the grey list of the global watchdog on terror financing and money laundering after four years.

Besides Pakistan, Nicaragua was removed from the FATF's 'grey list' while Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Mozambique were added to the list. Myanmar was added to the FATF's 'black list'.

In a statement, the FATF said Pakistan made significant progress in checking money laundering and combating financing of terrorism.

"They have (Pakistan) been removed from the grey list, however, there's still work to be done on their part," FATF president T Raja Kumar said.

T Raja Kumar, further said, “Pakistan has been on the grey list since 2018. There was a list of action plan items that it had to undertake and as far as demonstrated, Pakistan has taken action and largely addressed all of the action items it was subject to. So we were satisfied after the FATF inspection team went down to Pakistan, spoke to the authorities, took a look, verified and were satisfied that there was high level political commitment on part of the Pak authorities to not just implement the current set of action steps that they need to take but they are also committed to ongoing reform.”

Soon after, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked his foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto and army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa for their efforts to get the country out of FATF's list. He said the development is a vindication of the determined and sustained efforts over the years.

Delegates representing 206 members of the FATF’s global network and observer organisations, including the International Monetary Fund, United Nations, World Bank, Interpol and the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, participated at the working group and plenary meetings in Paris.