MEXICO CITY - DOZENS of countries agreed on Wednesday to increase efforts to crack down on tax evasion through havens that hide undisclosed and sometimes illicit money.

Tax officials at an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development conference in Mexico City agreed on rules for future discussions about tax evasion and said they would work on ways to monitor compliance of information-sharing agreements. But they were short on concrete steps.

'What we are doing today will help us fight the phenomenon of tax evasion,' said OECD head Angel Gurria at the end of the two-day forum. 'The point of this exercise here is an unprecedented degree of international cooperation.'

Tax experts hope increased cooperation and a deal last month forcing Swiss bank UBS AG to hand over details of some 4,450 bank accounts to US tax investigators will scare other European and offshore financial centres into adopting more transparent standards.

Some territories in the Caribbean - a piracy hotspot in centuries past which then gained a modern-day reputation as a hideaway for ill-gotten funds and fugitive financiers - have scrambled to get themselves dropped from the OECD's 'grey list' of states that have not signed transparency accords.

More than 30 countries and territories, including Switzerland, Panama, Chile and Uruguay, are on the list.

Last month, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands joined the OECD 'white list' of countries using internationally recognized tax standards after signing at least 12 bilateral tax agreements in line with OECD standards. -- REUTERS