Roadtown, Tortola - I would like to formally thank Mr. Michael Foot, who just concluded an independent Review of British Offshore Financial Centres, commissioned by the Her Majesty’s Treasury.  This review was announced back in November 2008 and the BVI has embraced it as an opportunity to demonstrate to the global community the regulatory standards and the robustness of our finance centre.  This is more important now than ever as the leaders of the G20 prepare for their Summit in London on April 2 to look at how to deal with the on-going global financial crisis.

The BVI has always maintained adherence to all international standards of financial regulation and co-operation, and in fact has secured in the past recognition from Governments such as Australia and the United Kingdom that we already meet current standards of regulation and international co-operation.  In addition, we have had independent confirmation only recently in the Peer Review by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force that the BVI Government has maintained a robust public policy commitment to ensuring that the Territory plays its part in the global fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.  The BVI stands ready to adapt to any new financial regulations that may emerge from the G20 London Summit and to make its contributions to the process.

The BVI committed to the OECD principles of exchange of information and transparency in 2002 and was one of the first jurisdictions to sign Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs).  We already have signed three such agreements with the U.S., UK and Australia and are very close to concluding TIEAs with a number of other jurisdictions.  The BVI has been acknowledged as fully compliant with OECD standards by the OECD’s Director of the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, Jeffrey Owens.

We understand that world leaders are currently looking at a global standard of 12 TIEAs as a benchmark of compliance with effective exchange of information and transparency.  BVI is committed to that, and is on track to meet that benchmark.  My Government publicly commits to continuing to work towards reaching that goal in the very near future. 

The BVI Government welcomes the recent statements by Singapore followed by Hong Kong, Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg amongst others to agree to abide by the same OECD principles that the BVI adopted as long ago as 2002.  We now await these declarations being put into practice.  I believe that it is in the interests of all UK Oversees Territories to adopt a similar approach and am prepared to work closely with colleague Premiers and Chief Ministers to this end.

For TIEAs to be effective there needs to be a level playing field.  We in the BVI have been calling for a level playing field for some time now and we are heartened at last to see movement on the international stage.  We now expect the world leaders who gather for the G20 London Summit to recognise finance centres, such as the BVI, that have always been co-operative and constructive members of the international community of nations as a matter of public policy.

We understand that there is speculation about the outcomes of the G20 London Summit.  However, we still expect there to be some recognition of the robustness of regulation and ability to exchange information in the BVI.  We are concerned by reports that distinctions may be drawn between jurisdictions based criteria which are not objective. The current crisis only serves to highlight how dangerous such an approach would be.  What we need now is for all jurisdictions to work together to ensure that there is a proper framework of global financial regulation which has to be based on a level playing field.  BVI stands ready to be part of the procecss to contribute to policy developments in this area.  BVI will as ever, implement any new global standards that emerge.

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