Bermuda's reputation as a clean jurisdiction was yesterday hammered home to UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

Finance Minister Grant Gibbons met his British equivalent at a major conference of Commonwealth Finance Ministers in Canada.

And Dr. Gibbons said: "I've had a few words with Mr. Brown and hopefully I will have the opportunity to talk to him further.

"But it's also a question of talking to other members of the British delegation. There are a lot of Treasury people here.'' A three-pronged attack by different international bodies on dodgy offshore jurisdictions is not on the official agenda of the meeting.

But, before leaving for the conference, Dr. Gibbons promised he would be discussing issues like the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's crackdown on "harmful tax regimes'' with Mr. Brown.

Dr. Gibbons said: "People are beginning to realise that countries have very different circumstances and that's one of the messages I'm certainly getting across with respect to Bermuda.

"One of the messages which is coming out of this conference, and it applies to Bermuda as well as to other countries, is that one size does not fit all in terms of how jurisdictions deal with these issues.'' Dr. Gibbons added that much of the first day of the conference dealt with the meltdown of the tiger economies of South East Asia -- and fears that the massive recession there could have a knock-on effect on the economies of the rest of the world.

He said that many economies in Europe were also struggling, although the US seemed to be holding up well.

Dr. Gibbons added: "Bermuda is very much dependent on other parts of the world, the US economy and the European economy to some extent as well.

"The concern is what is a spreading instability in the rest of the world and instability in the markets could affect Bermuda.'' But Dr. Gibbons said: "Bermuda is very fortunate in that a lot of its business, tourism and the financial sector, is US-based and its economy is still doing well.'' He added that it was "very clear'' that issues of supervision of business and international cooperation were to the forefront at the moment.

And he said that justified Bermuda's moves in the last year or so to "stay closely in step'' with international regulatory bodies like the Swiss Basle Banking Committee and its principles.