Fiji has taken a significant step toward being removed from the European Union’s list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions after becoming the 152nd signatory to a major international tax agreement aimed at tackling tax evasion and avoidance.
At a signing ceremony held in Paris yesterday, Minister for Finance, Commerce and Business Development, Esrom Immanuel, signed the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.
By joining the Convention, Fiji becomes part of the world’s most comprehensive international framework for tax cooperation, enabling it to exchange tax-related information with 151 other jurisdictions, including all major global financial centres.
The move further strengthens the Convention’s reach in the Asia-Pacific region and adds to more than 8,000 exchange relationships already operating under the agreement.
The Convention allows participating countries to provide wide-ranging mutual assistance in tax matters, including exchange of information on request, spontaneous and automatic exchanges, tax examinations abroad, simultaneous audits and assistance with tax collection.
It also includes strong safeguards to protect taxpayers’ rights.
Importantly for Fiji, the Convention is the primary legal instrument for implementing the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters, commonly known as the Common Reporting Standard (CRS).
Developed by the OECD and G20 countries, the CRS enables more than 125 jurisdictions worldwide to automatically exchange information on offshore financial accounts, a key requirement for meeting international tax transparency standards.
Beyond information exchange, the Convention plays a central role in combating illicit financial flows and supports the implementation of the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project, which targets tax practices used by multinational companies to shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions.
Fiji’s accession to the Convention demonstrates concrete progress in aligning with international tax norms, a move expected to strengthen confidence among global partners and bring the country closer to being delisted by the EU as a non-cooperative tax jurisdiction.
