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Your reference
Mr B G J Canty OBE
this ou
Our reference
Governor
Government House ANGUILLA
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30902
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(34
SGLAOS
Date
9 October 1990
Dear Brian,
OECD : EXTENSION OF CONVENTION AND INSTRUMENTS
1. On 5 April Richard Tauwhare wrote to you and your colleagues in other Dependent Territories to ask whether DT authorities saw advantage in being brought in under the umbrella of the OECD Convention and Instruments.
2. Gibraltar and Bermuda decided that it would be in their favour to be so covered and a declaration was made on 20 July to place formally on record that the Convention applies to them (along with the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man). I enclose a copy of the notification to the OECD Secretariat.
3.
We now need, and indeed have been asked as a matter of urgency by OECD Legal Services, to clarify to OECD members the status of those DTs who did not seek to have the Convention and Instruments extended ? to them. Clarification is also necessary to enable UKDel to answer
explicitly the regular flow of enquiries they now recieve. As matters stand, Anguilla, Turks and Caicos Islands, St Helena (including Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha) and the Falkland Islands have said that they do not see benefits in belonging to the OECD at this stage. The British Virgin Islands and Montserrat are still weighing up the merits as I believe are the Cayman Islands. The position of Hong Kong is unique and that is being handled separately. The remaining DTs will, I presume, wish to continue as now and not become involved.
4. To remove any lingering ambiguities, we would like to be able to state authoritatively to both the OECD Secretariat and to general enquirers that those DTS which are not mentioned in the declarations of 19 and 20 July fall outside the scope of the OECD (or not, as the case may be). Confirmation that the DTS in question do not wish to be covered by the Convention for now would not of course disbar them from reconsidering their position at some future date, should economic circumstances so warrant. But it is fair to say that any future application to accede to the OECD would be a less straightforward procedure than the present "clarification" of an