The Hindu Business Line : `WTO regime will favour chartered accountants'

THE chartered accountants in India will be the major gainers in the new WTO regime beginning next year, in view of the new areas emerging in accounting and auditing practices, Mr Sunil Goyal, President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India has said.

New opportunities are surfacing in the field of business process outsourcing (BPO), IT, Value Added Tax, insurance etc and Indian chartered accountants are competitive enough in the changing global scenario, he said at a press conference here on Friday.

There is a good demand for chartered accountants from the country in the western parts of the world, he added.

The advent of WTO regime from March next year will provide CAs a true global level playing field and the IICAI has come out with curriculum revision by offering new courses in information system, insurance management, insurance corporate booking, capital market etc, he added.

Welcoming the opening up of services for chartered accountants, he said, the Association has already conveyed to the Union Government its willingness to enter into one-to-one reciprocity with individual country in opening up of new challenges.

ICAI, he said is also promoting consolidation and mergers of offices of CAs to strengthen and position itself in the changed business environment.

Mr Goyal, who was here in connection with the two-day all-India conference of the Association, said that a Permanent Placement Cell to provide support and help to CAs was opened recently and a committee was also set up to change the entire training course.

ICAI has also taken a proactive step to start peer review mechanism to monitor the working of CAs .The objective is to provide guidance for the CAs to follow proper standards and guidelines in the profession, he said.

According to Mr Goyal, there were lot of impediments in the CA Act as many laws have become dated. A level playing field should be given to CAs vis-à-vis other service consultants considering the high percentage of commission given to them for various jobs, he added.

Earlier, inaugurating the conference, Mr P.V. Subba Rao, Executive Director of RBI, Mumbai said that the rising inflation is causing concern to the financial sector and step for reversing the trend were being mooted.

He pointed out that low interest rates were considered to have a bearing on inflation and there were options for changing the interest rate or maintaining it at the same level.

He said that the financial sector was passing through a phase of change and has lauded the entrepreneurship among the Kerala banking sector. Banks in the State are doing well and accounting practices had a key role in maintaining their strength, he added.

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