Sri Lanka, one of the best emerging economies in Asia

Moving towards single global accounting standard vital:

Charumini de Silva

International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) Chairman, Prof. David Tweedie said that Sri Lanka is one of the best emerging economies in the Asian region while maintaining high accounting standards in financial reports and statements.

Prof. David Tweedie

There are slight differences in the financial reports and statements due to technical issues faced by other regional countries. Therefore, it is important to move towards a single global accounting standard.

He was addressing the Regional Standard Setters Conference organized by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) in Colombo, yesterday.

Prof. Tweedie said the objective of the meeting was to develop a single set of high quality, global accounting standards that require transparent and comparable information in general purpose financial statements and reports.

Sri Lanka is up to the level of international accounting standards, but it has yet not been fully converted. However, Sri Lanka is keen on achieving global accounting standards by 2011. Sri Lanka has qualified accountants and the country should get their benefit to improve the country’s economy.

He had listened to presentations made by national accounting standard setters from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Each country presented its country’s current status quo regarding convergence of their national accounting standards with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), challenges faced within and their proposed plans to achieve the objective.

Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) President, Nishan Fernando said the meeting would help the IASB to evaluate the progress made by countries in the region in adopting international accounting standards and stimulate discussion on technical and other issues faced by countries in the region.

He said the South Asian regional standard setters conference was one of the most important in the region and is currently in the process of moving towards a single set of global accounting standards.

The South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA) countries from the IASB and the board’s response would significantly take the process forward.

South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA) Accounting and Auditing Standards Committee Chairman, Reyaz Mihular said that IFRS standards are increasingly moving to fair value measurement of asset and liabilities following the current trend to represent the economic consequences of an entity’s performance.