- Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman chairs Saudi cabinet session.
- FMU empowered to cooperate with foreign financial intelligence units.
- Govt, SFD inked agreement for deferred $1.2bn payment on oil imports.
The Saudi Arabian government has approved signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between its General Department of Financial Investigation and Pakistan’s Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) to combat money laundering, terror financing, and related offences.
This decision was taken by the Saudi cabinet, led by Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, who chaired its session on Tuesday.
According to the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the cabinet approved a MoU between the said departments of both countries “regarding cooperation in exchanging investigations related to money laundering, terrorist financing, and related crimes”.
In Pakistan, FMU is empowered to cooperate with financial intelligence units (FIUs) of other countries and to make reciprocal arrangements in order to share, request and receive information relating to money laundering, predicate offences and financing of terrorism and any other information that may be necessary to accomplish the objectives of the AML Act.
This development came a day after Pakistan signed an agreement with the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) to defer by one year a $1.2 billion payment on the country’s oil imports.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and SFD Chief Executive Officer Sultan Abdulrahman Al-Marshad witnessed the signing of two agreements worth $1.61 billion, further strengthening bilateral economic cooperation.
The two sides also inked a concessional loan agreement for the construction of a gravity-flow water scheme at Mansehra amounting to $41 million. The scheme is expected to benefit around 150,000 people living in the region.
Petroleum products, mostly from Saudi Arabia, make up the major chunk of Pakistan’s import bill. The Saudi facility can help Islamabad boost its foreign reserves ahead of the first review of a $7 billion IMF bailout in March.
Islamabad and Riyadh had also signed several MoUs to boost bilateral trade and investment worth over $2 billion in October last year.
The agreements included a $70 million investment in agriculture sector, establishment of advanced semiconductor chip manufacturing in Saudi Arabia, establishment of a textile industry, a white oil pipeline project, an MoU for exploring investment opportunities, a hybrid power project, development of transformer manufacturing facilities in both the countries, cyber security measures for customers and businesses, and the export of spices and vegetables from Pakistan.
Additionally, the agreements outline the establishment of a manufacturing facility for surgical and dental equipment and collaboration on the federal government’s E-Taaleem and digitalisation programmes.
