IASB Chairman calls on Co Affairs Min Prem Chand Gupta

New Delhi, Feb 13 (UNI) Sir David Tweedie, Chairman, International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), called on Union Company Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta here today and discussed issues relating to development and enforcement of Accounting Standards in India and the world.

Both were in agreement that IASB and ICAI should cooperate further in the exercise to bridge the gap between Indian and international practices so that investors globally are able to take informed decisions based on transparent and accountable financial reporting.

Accounting Standards play an important role to ensure that reliable, comparable and unbiased financial information are available to various stakeholders such as shareholders, creditors and regulators, enabling them to take sound economic and financial decisions.

In recent years, an increasing need has been felt for international harmonisation of the standards.

The work has been taken up internationally by the IASB, which is engaged in developing a single set of global accounting standards that require transparent and comparable information in general purpose financial statements.

In addition, the IASB co-operates with national accounting standard-setters to achieve convergence in accounting standards around the world. Towards this end, IASB has issued International Accounting Standards (IASs)/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs), to which many countries across the globe are converging.

In India steps have been taken to ensure that the financial reporting in the country is of international standards. The accounting standards are prepared based on well-laid down procedure specified in the Companies Act, 1956.

So far, 28 Accounting Standards have been notified by the Government.

Indian accounting practices today have almost come at a par with the international practices, and are based on the IASs/IFRSs issued by the IASB. The emphasis is not only to bridge the gap between Indian and international practices, but also to ensure that the conditions and practices prevailing in India are also taken into account.

UNI