BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) – The Barbados-based Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) says it is in “full agreement” with Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders who have called for a review of the policies relating to the labelling of countries as tax havens leading to them being blacklisted.

The CPDC said it believes that governments throughout the region are having to divert critical resources, to implement standards and regulations in order to become compliant with the overly-demanding requirements of international tax regulation.

CPDC Executive Director Shantal Munro- Knight said, “Governments in this region are bending over backwards to comply with the applicable standards.

“Yet, still after all the invested resources and having implemented the stipulated regulations, they cannot avoid being labelled tax havens. If one were a conspiracy theorist, one could suggest that the system is set up to ensure that developing countries remain continually on the periphery of the world economy.”

The CPDC said it was adding its voice in condemning the European Union over the recent publication of a list containing 30 countries, including Caribbean countries as “non-cooperative” and “tax havens”.

It said that the move by the European countries is particularly disturbing given the different levels of cooperation between the region and the EU.

“The CPDC is also firmly behind Barbados and other countries in their continued fight against this unfair labelling of countries in the region and encourages leaders to take a joint global approach to lobbying against such practices.

“The CPDC also notes that very often due to the huge imbalance in power, countries in the region have little recourse to fight against such labelling when it comes from countries like the EU and the United States.”

The Barbados-based organisation that groups several regional non-government bodies said that “often times there are “consultation or transparency in the determination of countries as tax havens, the labelling is arbitrary and inconsistent.

“CPDC is therefore calling for a high level regional committee which should include civil society who will thoroughly investigate and report on the regions blacklisting documenting the countries efforts at compliance and highlighting inconsistencies in applied standards.”