WASHINGTON - The United States and Monaco on Tuesday signed an agreement to share tax information, the latest step by the tiny principality toward exiting the Group of 20 blacklist of tax havens.

The bilateral tax-information exchange agreement was signed in Washington by Neal Wolin, deputy secretary of the US Treasury, and Franck Biancheri, Monaco's foreign affairs and finance minister.

Monaco is seeking to finalize 12 such bilateral treaties, the minimum that are required to be eligible for elimination from the tax-haven list established at the G20 summit in London in April.

Monaco has now signed four fiscal transparency agreements this year that conform with the norms of the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, having already signed similar deals with Belgium, Luxembourg and San Marino.

The agreement means Monaco can now pass on information about US bank account holders to US tax authorities "on a case by case basis and following concrete and substantive requests," an official in Monaco told AFP.

It does not authorise "general fishing for information," the official said.

A Mediterranean playground for the rich and famous, Monaco previously gave out information on foreign bank account holders only to criminal investigators from the country concerned, not tax officials.

The G20 group of leading developed and developing economies drew up a "grey list" including Monaco earlier this year of countries that have agreed to respect global rules against tax havens but are still not applying them fully.

Monaco has said it wants to be off the list by the end of 2009.

Biancheri told AFP before the document was signed that his country intends to sign three other treaties - with Austria, Andorra and Qatar - before the G20 September 24-25 summit in the US city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The world's smallest French-speaking nation signed its first tax-exchange treaty with neighbouring France in 1962.