HOPES ARE HIGH in Panama that the country’s name will be missing  from a list of tax havens to be published by The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in July next year.

To determine if a country is cooperative or non-cooperative with regard to tax matters, the body will use three criteria: the implementation of the exchange of information, the commitment to send bank wire information automatically from 2018 and the signing of the multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters.

Over the next year the organization will review the implementation of the regime for the exchange of information.

Panama is committed to the automatic exchange of information starting from 2018 and has said it will sign the multilateral convention. It is currently  in phase II of the peer review of its assessment process. If the rating is negative, it will have until July 2017 to make corrections.

Gian Castillero, an adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the country will automatically be part of the list  of tax havens if it fails to pass the phase II evaluation, regardless of whether or not it has met the other two criteria.

"Panama hopes to be evaluated as 'partially compliant.' If not, we will have until July 2017 to improve the assessment," said Castillero.

OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria said in the report presented to the G20 that it was "delighted to announce that it received a letter from the vice president of Panama formally requesting an invitation to sign the multilateral convention after its ratification, which will allow them to better implement commitments for the exchange of information upon request as well as the automatic exchange of financial information," reports La Prensa.