What attributes have accountants acquired in coping with the global downturn? And how will these differ as China enters recovery?
Integrity and professional judgment are the most valuable attributes of accountants. Only with sound professional ethics and upright professional moral and excellent technical competences, can accountants play a more significant role in the global economic recovery, and win the trust of public and clients, through reliable assurance information, objective auditing opinions and professional consulting services.
China is leading the recovery from the financial crisis and this is both an opportunity and a challenge for accountants, because the accountancy profession is a high-end sector and integral part of the service industry. Its expansion in the scope of business it provides will contribute much to the China's economic restructuring. This requires accountants not only to provide traditional services like accounting and auditing, but to fully play the role of think-tank in new business areas, such as lowering energy consumption, reducing manufacturing costs, optimizing management processes, enhancing economic effectiveness and improving quality.
How has the accountancy profession responded to the demands on accountants in the current economic climate?
At present, a key priority for CICPA is to improve service quality and expand business scope of certified public accounting (CPA) firms. CICPA is encouraging new service development, through conferences, seminars and training. In addition, it is drawing up new business guidelines on the basis of research and compiling a CPA Business Catalogue to provide a roadmap and technical support to CPA firms. CICPA is also working with local government departments to construct accounting service bases and outsourcing centres. Last but not least, CICPA is pushing forward the amendment of relevant laws and regulations and introduction of new policies in respect of company secretary, rural financial disclosure, forensic and tax-related assurance. CICPA will also monitor the quality of new services for quality assurance and orderly and smooth operation. We hope that the proportion of audit service and non-audit service revenues within the profession will reach a split of 5:5 within eight years or so, for optimum of business scope and revenue structure.
What challenges does the accountancy profession face in one of the fastest-growing economies?
The Chinese accountancy profession has developed remarkably. In order to follow the pace of Chinese economic development and provide better support to the Chinese economic society, there are still many challenges. One of which is how to better serve the international cooperation. We have a lot of work to do in many areas, such as training up internationally qualified professional talent, establishing of international service networks and developing an international brand.
How important are partnerships with other accountancy bodies, such as ACCA, in the development of the profession in mainland China?
International cooperation is an important driving force for the development and progress of the Chinese accountancy profession, and it has benefited from strong support from international professional accounting bodies like ACCA, in the areas of international convergence of auditing standards, cultivation of international professional talent, training of university teachers in the CPA specialization.
How is CICPA helping accountants to be highly regarded professionals?
Building the integrity of the accounting profession is CICPA’s central task and the basis for the healthy development of the profession. In the early days of CICPA, its motto was "to win reputation by quality and to seek development by reputation". The integrity of the profession has been established with a professional ethics code as the core, an integrity information monitoring system as the technical support and relevant rules and mechanisms as the assurance. The progress of the Chinese accounting profession and enhancement of its credibility have been recognized by the public; and the financial statements audited by Chinese CPAs have increasingly become the basis for decisions made by investors.
