The 18 completed studies brings the total number of OECD peer reviews of jurisdictions to 59, it said in a statement. 

One of the reports, on Jersey in the Channel Islands, saying that the island had made “significant progress” in terms of tax transparency, prompted Jersey Finance, the organisation representing the island’s financial services sector, to claim that the OECD report was a reproach to campaigners claiming that offshore jurisdictions fell short.

“So often we hear detractors make misleading claims that Jersey is secretive and unco-operative and yet the truth based on hard evidence is very different. An independent, specially formed global body set up by the OECD countries, which is able to delve closely into our procedures and ask probing questions of our officials, shows clearly that Jersey is responsive and co-operative,” said Geoff Cook, chief executive at Jersey Finance.

The Tax Justice Network, a campaign group, has poured scorn on tax information exchange agreements , saying such bilateral treaties often do not assist revenue authorities in hunting after alleged tax dodgers.

Governments around the world have signed more than 700 agreements to exchange tax information, and the OECD said that compliance programmes have already yielded €14 billion in additional tax revenues from more than 100,000 wealthy individuals who had been hiding assets offshore.

The OECD said that in general, its peer reviews showed a high level of compliance with financial rules, saying that many of the reports’ 370 recommendations had already been acted upon.

But it added: “A small number of jurisdictions will not pass to the next stage of the review process because the deficiencies were sufficiently serious.”

The latest peer review reports, made up of new and supplementary surveys, were on on Brunei Darussalam, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Gibraltar, Hong Kong , Indonesia, Macao , Malaysia, Uruguay and Vanuatu, Japan, Jersey, the Netherlands, Spain,  Mauritius, Monaco, San Marino, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the British Virgin Islands.

In the 13 new reviews, the most common deficiencies, the OECD identified related to: lack of available ownership information on trusts and bearer shares; incomplete accounting information for some forms of trusts, companies and partnerships ; and limitations in the authorities’ powers to access information requested by foreign authorities.

The OECD said supplementary reviews show that jurisdictions’ compliance with the international standards is “advancing swiftly”.

“Mauritius, San Marino and the Turks and Caicos Islands introduced new legislation improving their requirements related to accounting information; San Marino, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the British Virgin Islands removed limitations by the competent authority to access information; San Marino resolved all its legal deficiencies relating to the availability of ownership information; and Monaco proceeded to expand its network of international agreements and brought 14 existing agreements into force,” the OECD said.

It said the “Phase 2 reviews” of Monaco, San Marino and the British Virgin Islands – assessing their exchange of information in practice – will take place in the second half of 2012, while the Phase 2 review of the Turks and Caicos Islands is scheduled for the first half of 2013.

“We have seen remarkable progress in the Peer Review Group and a real willingness on the part of jurisdictions to address problems identified by their peers. Of course, there is more work to ensure that in the long term, we achieve a comprehensive and effective exchange of information,” said François D’Aubert, chairman of the peer review group at the OECD.

Meanwhile, the OECD’s global forum, which examines issues such as compliance over tax exchange data, has expanded with the membership of El Salvador, Mauritania, Morocco, and Trinidad and Tobago as new additions, increasing the forum 105 member jurisdictions.