Introduction

1. When, in 1991, the Committee on Fiscal Affairs adopted the concept of an ambulatory Model Tax Convention, it also decided that because the influence of the Model Tax Convention had extended far beyond the OECD member countries, the ongoing process through which the Model Tax Convention would be updated should be opened up to benefit from the input of non-OECD economies.

2. Pursuant to that decision, the Committee on Fiscal Affairs decided, in 1996, to organise annual meetings that would allow experts of member countries and some non-OECD economies to discuss issues related to the negotiation, application and interpretation of tax conventions. Recognising that non-OECD economies could only be expected to associate themselves to the development of the Model Tax Convention if they could retain their freedom to disagree with its contents, the Committee also decided that these economies should, like member countries, have the possibility to identify the areas where they are unable to agree with the text of an Article or with an interpretation given in the Commentary.

3. This has led to the inclusion in the Model Tax Convention of this section, which sets out the positions of a number of non-OECD economies on the Articles of the Model and the Commentary thereon. It is intended that this document will be periodically updated, like the rest of the Model Tax Convention, to reflect changes in the views of participating economies.

4. This section reflects the following non-OECD economies’ positions on the Model Tax Convention:Albania

Argentina

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Brazil

Bulgaria

Colombia

Croatia

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Gabon

Georgia

Hong Kong, China

India

Indonesia

Ivory Coast

Kazakhstan

Latvia

Lithuania

Malaysia

Morocco

People's Republic of China

Philippines

Romania

Russia

Serbia

Singapore

South Africa

Thailand

Tunisia

Ukraine

United Arab Emirates

Vietnam

5. Whilst these economies generally agree with the text of the Articles of the Model Tax Convention and with the interpretations put forward in the Commentary, there are for each economy some areas of disagreement. For each Article of the Model Tax Convention, the positions that are presented in this section indicate where an economy disagrees with the text of the Article and where it disagrees with an interpretation given in the Commentary in relation to the Article.[^89] As is the case with the observations and reservations of member countries, no reference is made to cases where an economy would like to supplement the text of an Article with provisions that do not conflict with the Article, especially if these provisions are offered as alternatives in the Commentary, or would like to put forward an interpretation that does not conflict with the Commentary.