* Britain accused of hypocrisy for not signing up
* Body agrees tougher disclosure measures in Sydney
By Emma Farge and William James
GENEVA/LONDON, May 22 (Reuters) - The UK and Frenchgovernments will join a global initiative that will require oiland mining firms to comply with new disclosure measures aimed attackling corruption, British Prime Minister David Cameron saidon Wednesday.
The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) hasstakeholders in the public and private sectors and requiresresource companies to disclose payments made to governments.
EITI terms are not legally binding, but member countriesthat fall short of requirements can be suspended from theprocess, leading to political embarrassment.
Cameron confirmed a Reuters report about the countries'intention to join the initiative in a press conference alongsideFrench President Francois Hollande in Paris.
Britain, currently chairing the Group of Eight majoreconomies and home to resource firms such as Rio Tinto and BP, has said that transparency will be one of thefocus areas for the G8 summit in June.
Critics have accused oil producer Britain of hypocrisy fornot joining the EITI initiative, currently chaired by former UKMP Clare Short, especially as the Labour government helped tocreate it in 2002.
"They are joining for practice-what-you-preach reasons. It'shard to tell countries to do EITI when you're not doing ityourself," one of the sources said.
Global pressure to increase transparency in mining andresources has been growing, and the United States has alreadypassed regulations that require U.S.-registered companies todisclose payments made to governments for access to resources.
The American Petroleum Institute opposed the U.S. measuresand has challenged the regulations in the U.S. appeals court.
The EITI, supported by the World Bank as well asresource-rich countries such as oil producer Nigeria, agreed toa new global transparency standard at a meeting in Sydney onWednesday.
This aims to strengthen reporting standards by breaking downdata by payment type -- including tax contributions -- projectand company.
The new measures will also require participants to give dataon commodity sales, broken down by "individual company,government entity, and revenue stream" for the first time, thenew requirements showed on Wednesday.
"This decision is the first step to fill a large gap ininternational rules governing transparency in the commoditiessector," said Swiss NGO the Berne Declaration.
Others said that the measures did not go far enough as theyfell short of requiring members to publish a breakdown of theprice for each commodity shipment.
Members have yet to agree on the phase-in time forimplementing the new measures.