The Hindu Business Line : ICAI in talks with Govt for practising abroad

THE Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is discussing the issue of mutual recognition agreement in terms of GATT Secretariat recommendations with the Union Ministry of Commerce.

This is to pave the way for Indian accountancy professionals to practice in various countries.

Stating this the ICAI Central Council Member, Mr Shantilal Daga, and Director (CPE), Dr B. Chakravarty, said the Institute was also simultaneously negotiating with their counterparts in various countries to enter into mutual recognition agreement.

"We are currently in talks with AICPA in the US, the Canadian accountancy body and the British institute," they said.

Talking to newspersons on the eve of the two-day International Conference on `The Global Challenge to Accounting' scheduled to begin here on Friday, they said the current `feel good' factor in the country would continue in the long term only with the structural support from the economy.

Viewing that the whole regime would collapse in the absence of a sound fiscal and accounting system, they said the country has the core competency in audit and accountancy and the existing regulatory framework was one of the rigorous and competent one's across the globe.

However, they felt the need for more financial and accounting reforms to become more adaptable to the emerging global business and economic needs.

On the ensuing International Conference, they said the main theme revolves around the developing paradigm that the way business especially multinational business was expanding was in itself quite intensive and fast.

"In dealing with a business environment that is so fast and complex, multinational businesses tend to take strategies that may not follow the strict codes of probity and propriety that the application of the accounting and auditing disciplines lay down. The issue then is, since business will not slow down, the whole process of accounting has to be speeded up, and the discipline itself must become more adoptable to the needs of 21st century business and economic needs," they said.

Further, they said the basic approach devolves upon the premise that so far as Indian corporates and multinationals were concerned, one of the major USPs was the fact that they have always been subjected to more rigorous controls than their counterparts.

"That is why they are representative of an economic and legal regime that is robust. Nevertheless, this fundamental robustness is not the ultimate for the Indian accounting profession. The needs of globally expanding businesses must be understood and comprehended by the application of the discipline of accounting.

"To do that, a new perspective must be adopted. Such a new perspective will emerge from the pooling together of the requirements of the many sectors of the economy," Mr Shantilal Daga and Dr Chakravarty said.

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