David Cameron will urge dozens of nations to redouble efforts to combat corruption at a summit meeting on Thursday, days after he described two of the countries attending as "fantastically corrupt".
Cameron is hosting representatives of about 50 states at the anti-corruption conference, including the presidents of Afghanistan and Nigeria, which he told the Queen were "possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world". Cameron has since said the leaders of both countries are working hard to fight corruption.
Cameron will announce on Thursday that foreign companies that own property in Britain will be forced to make public their true ownership in a register of beneficial ownership information to be launched next month, a senior British official said.
"The evil of corruption reaches into every corner of the world. It lies at the heart of the most urgent problems we face – from economic uncertainty, to endemic poverty, to the ever-present threat of radicalisation and extremism," the British Prime Minister will say at the London conference, according to his office.
"A global problem needs a truly global solution. It needs an unprecedented, courageous commitment from world leaders to stand united, to speak into the silence, and to demand change."
France, the Netherlands, Nigeria and Afghanistan would also commit to launching public registers of true company ownership, according to Number 10.
Australia, New Zealand, Jordan, Indonesia, Ireland and Georgia will agree to take the initial steps towards making similar arrangements, it added. Some of Britain's Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies have also signed up to share their beneficial ownership registers with other countries.
Cameron put tackling corruption, including tax avoidance, at the heart of his agenda when he hosted a summit of the Group of Eight leading industrialised democracies in 2013.
Thursday's summit, which brings together leaders such as US Secretary of State John Kerry and a deputy foreign minister from Russia, is seen as a milestone in those efforts.
But after Cameron described Nigeria and Afghanistan as "fantastically corrupt", a senior British official said Britain would not be lecturing other countries.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said on Wednesday he would not demand an apology from Cameron. Buhari, who has a reputation for personal probity and has pledged to crack down on corruption in Nigeria, said Britain should instead return assets held by corrupt officials.
Cameron has come under pressure over his fight against corruption since the release of the "Panama Papers", leaked documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca that named the prime minister's late father Ian Cameron among the list of clients.
He said he once had a stake in his father's offshore trust and had profited from it, but that was before he became prime minister.
The senior British official said the British Virgin Islands, a British overseas territory that the leaked documents suggested was home to more than half of the 200,000 companies set up by Mossack Fonseca, would not be attending the summit.
