APPEARING on the OECD’s white list will not make Guernsey lose its ‘tax haven’ tag overnight, the man responsible for promoting the island has warned.

Peter Niven, chief executive of GuernseyFinance, pictured, said many commentators would continue using the phrase despite the island receiving the OECD endorsement of appearing on the list of cooperative jurisdictions.

Since the G20 summit, a number of national and international media reports have still referred to Guernsey as a tax haven and Mr Niven (pictured) said the island would have to continue working hard to get its message across.

‘I’m a realist and just because we are on a white list it does not mean we are going to suddenly lose a tag that people have used for many years,’ he said.

‘They will continue to use that term because they have a different agenda to ours. A lot of these people still think we are depriving other countries of tax revenues by providing offshore services.