Guernsey's Advisory and Finance Committee president Laurie Morgan said: 'A and F has been co-operating directly with the OECD forum on harmful tax practices since the first report was published in 1998. We have made an extremely detailed and reasoned case to the OECD in order to demonstrate that the island does not fulfil the forum's criteria for a tax haven.'

Conseiller Morgan also said: 'We welcome the progress that the forum is making in reviewing the preferential regimes of OECD member states. In our submissions to the forum we have emphasised the importance of recognising that with a global market there has to be a level playing field. Simply targeting specific jurisdictions will not eliminate harmful tax competition.'

The OECD's Committee on Fiscal Affairs is scheduled to hear findings from its forum on harmful tax practices at a meeting next January and the blacklist of 'tax havens' is due to be published after a meeting of OECD ministers next June. It is expected that the forum's report will distinguish between unco-operative tax havens and jurisdictions that commit 'towards eliminating the harmful aspects of their regimes', but no distinction will be made between independent states and dependencies.

OECD member states are expected to complete self-reviews of their preferential tax regimes by April 2000 and have been recommended to eliminate them by April 2003.