Jacques Chirac proposal for an "experimental" international tax to help fund the war against Aids was today criticised as an unpractical diversion by Thabo Mbeki, the South African President, and Bill Clinton, the former American President

The plans were also described as "bizarre" by the Swiss banking community. The criticism signals the heavy resistance the ambitious plans are likely to meet from the industries they would affect.

The French President suggested yesterday that $10 billion (£5.3bn) a year could be raised by via a levy on financial transactions, airline tickets, and fuel. Among the ideas put forward, President Chirac suggested a tax on money coming in and out of countries that have banking secrecy laws, such as Switzerland.

"Would it involve the consent of all the governments and parliaments around the world?" Mr Mbeki asked. "The resources are required today," he added.

Mr Clinton said that he did not want to be "diverted into debating" and moved away from "keeping people alive".

President Chirac said that the tax would raise money needed to stem the spread of HIV/Aids. He said that despite huge efforts so far, "we are failing in the face of this terrible pandemic."

President Chirac's proposal was also denounced by the association of private Swiss bankers.

"Jacques Chirac is missing the target, this suggestion mixes things that should not be mixed," said the association’s secretary general Michel Derobert.

The concept behind the tax appeared "bizarre," said the spokesman for the Swiss association of bankers, Thomas Sutter.

Tax evasion from developing countries, which often have problems with corruption, does not necessarily benefit Switzerland," but also goes to numerous countries that have no banking secrecy," he told Radio Suisse Romande, referring in particular to Britain and the United States.

Switzerland, whose banks manage 1.8 trillion Swiss francs (£800 billion) deposited by foreign clients, jealously protects its banking secrecy and does not consider tax evasion a crime.

The number of Aids patients receiving life-extending drugs in poor countries has jumped to 700,000 from 440,000 six months ago, the UN estimates. But the jump in number of people recieving treatment still means that only 12 per cent of the estimated 6 million adults who require antiretroviral therapy in poorer countries are doing so.

The UN has identified a $2-billion funding shortfall that could derail the goal of treating three million people by the end of this year. About 38 million people worldwide, including 25 million in sub-Saharan Africa, are living with HIV/Aids.

Despite the fact that 14,000 people contract HIV every day, concern among businesses has dropped by nearly a quarter in the last 12 months, with nearly three quarters of all companies having no policies in place to address the problem, according to a report published this week.

President Chirac suggested options including: a "contribution" on international financial transactions, a tax on aviation and maritime fuel, a tax on capital movements in or out of countries which practised banking secrecy, or a "small levy" such as a dollar on the three billion airline tickets sold every year.

"What is striking about these examples," President Chirac said, "is the disproportion between the modest efforts required and the benefits everyone would reap from them."

The proposals recall the mooted "Tobin Tax", an idea originaly formulated by James Tobin, a Nobel laureate economist at Yale. Subsequent versions of his scheme have claimed that up to $300 billion a year could be raised by imposing a levy on foreign exchange deals. Proponents of the plans have argue that the money raised coudl be spent on urgent global priorities, such as preventing global warming, disease, and poverty. Two years ago President Chirac also raised the possibility of an international tax to help the fight against Aids, but gave few details.

President Chirac added that developed countries should also create tax incentives to stimulate private donations to charity. He went on to acknowledge that his proposals would be widely debated, an allusion to US opposition to any international tax, and said there was "no question" of treading on each country’s right to set its own levies.

"But there is nothing to prevent states from cooperating and coming to an understanding on new resources and their allocation to a common cause," he said.

He said a tax on international financial transactions would be implemented sparingly and at a very low rate and would not be an obstacle to normal market operations. It could raise $10 billion a year, he added.

A levy on capital movements would partially compensate for the consequences of tax evasion which damaged the poorest countries, and would be allocated to development.

The fuel tax would apply to air and sea transport and effectively end the current exemption regime.Meanwhile, a small levy on plane tickets would not compromise the economic balance of the aviation sector, the President added.

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