PARIS - SWITZERLAND said on Wednesday it had formally complained to the OECD after the organisation placed it on a draft list of uncooperative tax havens in a running row about banking secrecy.

'We were surprised, not to say annoyed, in recent days to find Switzerland's name on a list that the OECD has cooked up in a non-transparent manner,' Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey told reporters in Paris.

'Switzerland is not a tax haven, not a delinquent state, not an uncooperative state,' she added, speaking after talks here with French ministers.

She said Switzerland had sent a letter of complaint to Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based, government-funded research institute.

Switzerland along with several other countries and territories last week said it would relax its bank secrecy laws amid growing international pressure to stamp out tax havens.

Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz said the OECD had threatened to blacklist it as a tax haven and it risked being punished with economic sanctions, according to comments published at the weekend.

Switzerland is one of 30 members of the OECD, which groups industrialised, democratic nations across the world and serves as policy adviser and a forum for debate about economic and political issues. -- AFP