The shady world of corrupt government and ruthless companies bribing them to win lucrative contracts is normally associated with the third world.

Finance ministers and tax chiefs from 51 countries signed an agreement yesterday to automatically swap tax information, which Germany’s finance minister said heralded the end of tax evasion via secret bank accounts.

A comprehensive global action plan on corporation tax systems revealed by the OECD will force Ireland to change some of the elements that have made the country attractive to multinational companies.

“If you can’t tax the big guys then you are left with the little guys and the middle class, and they can’t provide enough” for the modern democratic state, according to OECD head Jose Angel Gurria.

The OECD has cut its global growth expectations again and warned that the eurozone faced not just internal challenges but also risks from the US and emerging market economies.

The OECD is not “going to lose sleep” over the nominal amount of cutbacks in October’s budget as long as the deficit reduction targets agreed with the troika are met.

European Union economies are in a serious downturn and more action is needed to return them to growth, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Pressure mounted on Europe to build an even bigger financial stabilisation fund to head off sovereign debt concerns, with the United States, Brazil, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) all urging an increase.

THE scale of Ireland’s unemployment problem was set out in stark terms in a new international report detailing global concerns over rising joblessness.

TOKYO Japan’s economy contracted during the April-June quarter at an annual rate of 2.1%, worse than the initial estimate, the government said today, underlining the damage from the March earthquake disaster.

THE case for reintroducing third-level fees is strengthened by the latest OECD report on global education funding but the economic think-tank has also warned against up-front charges for students.

THE number of people unemployed throughout the world could rise by up to 25 million by 2010 because of the global financial and economic crisis, secretary-general of the OECD Angel Gurria said yesterday.

Climate change could treble the number of people threatened by coastal flooding over the next 60 years, one forecaster said today.