The Accounting Standards Council (ASC), together
with the accounting standard setters from this region, agreed on
the formation of the Asian-Oceanian Standard Setters Group (AOSSG)
on 17 April 2009 in Beijing. The AOSSG serves as the platform for
standard setters in the Asian-Oceanian region to discuss and work
together on regional issues regarding International Financial Reporting
Standards (IFRS) and for the region to engage the International
Accounting Standards Board (IASB) on the IFRS. The formation of
the AOSSG was strongly supported by the standard setters who attended
the meeting; namely Singapore, Australia, Brunei, China, Indonesia,
Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR.
The formation of the AOSSG also received support from Sir David
Tweedie, the Chairman of the IASB. The first AOSSG meeting will
be held in Malaysia in November of 2009.
2 The ASC also participated in this year’s
Asian-Oceanian IFRS Regional Policy Forum hosted by the Ministry
of Finance of the People’s Republic of China on 16 April 2009
in Beijing. About 80 participants from Australia, Brunei, Indonesia,
Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore,
China, Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR attended the Forum.
3 The IFRS Regional Policy Forum is a key regional
IFRS policy platform that is attended by senior representatives
of the IASB, accounting standard setters, professional accounting
bodies, central banks, financial oversight bodies and government
officials. This year’s Forum explored the relationship between
the financial crisis and accounting and provided the platform for
greater cooperation amongst regional accounting standards setters
and related regulators and supervisors on the following areas:
- the relationship between the global financial crisis and
the financial reporting framework;
- the actions taken by the respective jurisdictions in the
region in response to the financial crisis;
- international convergence and the regional contribution to
the international accounting standards setting process; and
- financial reporting requirements for non-publicly accountable
entities and progress in the eXtensible Business Reporting Language
(XBRL).
4 Ms Euleen Goh, Chairperson of the ASC, spoke
at the Forum where she highlighted the need for international accounting
standards to be firmly grounded on principles and be reflective
of economic substance of the business transactions in different
regions. Ms Goh also made the call for the IASB to continue to focus
and expedite its work on the review of the IFRS conceptual framework
so as to avoid the need to make too many incremental changes to
the IFRS. The full copy of Chairperson’s speech is appended
here.
5 “The ASC is happy to participate in the
formation of the AOSSG and to host the next IFRS Regional Policy
forum in Singapore in 2010. Both the AOSSG and the Regional Policy
Forum are key regional platforms to bring together accounting standard
setters and market constituents from major jurisdictions in the
Asian-Oceanian region and to provide the IASB with the Asian-Oceanian
perspective on accounting issues. With the establishment of the
AOSSG, we hope to see closer collaboration and cooperation amongst
countries in this region on all aspects of accounting standards.”
said Ms Goh. |
