At a pre-G8 summit event on trade, tax and transparency in London, Rio Tinto called for businesses to be more transparent about their tax affairs and stressed the importance of governments taking further steps that encourage growth in the developing world and tackle poverty.
Rio Tinto chief executive Sam Walsh participated in the event and said that Rio Tinto supported the UK Government’s call “for a global push on responsible trade and investment to help fuel development and the fight against poverty”.
“As a founder member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and a company that publishes a breakdown of the global taxes we pay every year”, Mr Walsh said Rio Tinto was “fully supportive of the efforts to spread this kind of good practice more broadly. This should be pursued in a sensible way, with a clear and consistent global standard for extractive industry tax reporting that keeps the focus on fighting corruption and the burden on business manageable”.
Mr Walsh said it was also important to recognise that transparency in tax affairs was “not an end in itself”. He said that “building the capability of governments to collect and spend tax revenues effectively, as well as maintaining a positive investment climate are both critical for growth. This is an area in which governments in both the developed and developing world, businesses and NGOs can work together to bring real and lasting change.”
Source: Rio Tinto media release, 14 June 2013
[LTN 114, 17/6/13]