Bermuda has joined forces with seven Nordic economies- Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Greenland, Iceland and Norway, in addition to the Faroe Islands and New Zealand to put efforts into the international tax exchange information standard. It was one of the first jurisdictions to sign up to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development tax sharing agreement in May 2000 and it has previously signed agreements with Australia, the UK and US. Bermuda was also one of the 11 jurisdictions that helped with the model agreement on Exchange of Information in Tax Matters in 2002. Jeffery Owens, director of the OECD's centre for tax policy and administration said: 'Bermuda is an important financial centre that played a constructive role in developing the standards now endorsed by all major financial centres.' In recent weeks, a number of economies- both OECD and non-OECD have agreed to put efforts in implementing international standards developed by the OECD's global forum on transparency and exchange information.