Ingraham says Caribbean will follow demands from France

Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Hubert Ingraham, says Caribbean countries named by France as tax havens will have no choice but to comply with the measures outlined by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force.

Earlier this month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking at the end of the G20 summit in France named 11 countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, and Barbados, as tax havens for failing to meet transparency standards.

"The reality is ... the developed world has to fund their social systems and as revenue becomes less and less available for them to do so, more and more efforts will be made to find additional sources of revenue," said Ingraham.

" ... The reality is, the developed world doesn't really believe we ought to be in financial services as we are and they are taking every step to drive back onshore the things we are doing," he told the Caribbean Media Corporation.

The three CARICOM countries have been pushing back at Sarkozy.

"I was not surprised by the comments of President Sarkozy in relation to the countries in the region, but I notice he included Switzerland, and that gave me some comfort," he said.

"The reality is all of us in the financial services business have to do business with the developed world, and so the strength to which we holler and scream is part satisfaction for ourselves, but at the end of the day, we have to comply."

Ingraham pointed to past fights in which Nassau eventually had to concede.

"In The Bahamas, for instance, we virtually swore we would never sign a tax-information agreement, but the Americans used their might and we ended up signing with them. We firmly said we will not do so with anybody else in the world, that was a one-off deal just because of our relations with them ... we ended up signing with everybody," he said.

Ingraham said that while Barbados took the view that it has double taxation treaties and had no need for tax-information agreements, and when the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development issued its blacklist of countries, The Bahamas was included but Barbados was not.

"So it is ironic that Barbados is now being categorised by the French in that way, but Barbados will do what is necessary to comply and so will all," he predicted.