The eyes of the world descended upon Bermuda for the start of the Organisation for the Co-operation of Economic and Development's (OECD) Global Forum today.Around 250 delegates from across the world were in attendance at the event which is being held at the Fairmont Southampton and runs until tomorrow afternoon.Among the key talking points will be the much-anticipated peer review reports on the implementation of the global standard for tax information exchange and transparency, particularly the US and Switzerland. Other reports include France, Hungary, Italy, the Isle of Man, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore.Later today Bermuda will initial a tax information exchange agreement (TIEA) with Kenya as the first country to reach such a deal with the African nation, Premier Paula Cox announced in her opening remarks this morning.The Premier said the meeting was pivotal in a world that had become increasingly complex and competitive and it was important to set a benchmark for consistency going forward.She said the focus for the conference would be on knowledge sharing, particularly on policy successes and failures, learning and building partnerships for the future.But she stressed that countries should not be limited by their size or economy and it was key to have a level playing field for all."There cannot be one size fits all," she said. "The challenge is that we have some tough issues to discuss over the next couple of days."We have to rebalance our economies and ensure that growth and opportunity is shared across the world."Ms Cox's opening speech was followed by an update on the latest developments at the OECD by Mike Rawstron, chair of the Global Forum."This is the largest Global Forum ever and each year our meetings are bigger, we have more members and more international jurisdictions willing to participate in our work," he said."Our membership is reflecting the changing interest in our work."Mr Rawstron said that the OECD aimed to complete 60 reviews by November and to have concluded all of the phase one reviews by next year.He said that while the signing of tax information exchange agreements had slowed down due to scarcer resources and time consuming negotiations, the organsition would be looking at ways of speeding up and making the process easier.The conference hall resembled the league of nations with most of the big nations having a seat at the table, flanked by Government officials and representatives from the Chamber of Commerce and the Bermuda Stock Exchange.A number of offshore or international financial centres have come under fire or been labelled as tax havens in recent months but at a Meeting of Council of Ministers in Paris last week, OECD economies agreed it was key to do more to involve non-OECD economies partners in discussions on policy.Yesterday the Premier opened proceedings by outlining the aims and objectives of the conference and gave an update on Bermuda's progress in meeting the new standards.This followed the OECD Global Forum's Peer Review Group reports released last September in Singapore on the first eight countries to be assessed, of which the Island was one of two judged to have "all elements in place" within its legal and regulatory infrastructure to achieve international tax transparency standards.Over the course of the next two days delegates are also set to debate a range of issues including helping small and developing countries to implement the global standard and report back to the Group of 20 (G20) on the progress made towards tax transparency.