GOVT EXAMINING ACCOUNTING STANDARDS

The government today said the process of converging Indian Accounting Standards (IAS) with global standard, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), will continue to help India Inc tap international markets with reduced cost of compliance. The government has already notified 28 accounting standards for Indian corporates and would assess more standards for notification, an official release said."The government would examine further accounting standards to be followed by companies, on the basis of the standards proposed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), subject to the recommendations of NACAS thereon, for notification in accordance with the procedure laid down under the Companies Act, 1956," it said.In the process, the approach of convergence with IFRS would be continued so that the financial information disclosed by Indian companies compares well with that disclosed by non-Indian companies in compliance with IFRS, it added.The statement assumes importance as Indian companies listed on European stock exchanges will have to comply with both IFRS and IAS from next year, in case the two set of standards are not converging.Time till 2011 would be given for IAS to converge with IFRS, in case India makes a declaration that the two standards are synchronising.Recently, ICAI President Ved Jain had said the European Commission wanted India to make a declaration by June 30 this year that the IAS were converging with IFRS. He said of the 38 IAS, seven have absolutely converged with IFRS, while work is going on for upgrading the remaining 31 standards. The ICAI has already said that it would work to converge the IAS with the IFRS by 2011, which would help investors get reliable information across the globe and would curtail the cost of compliance as restatement of accounts would be obviated, the release said.The 28 IAS, notified by the government in December 2006, are to be applied with effect from financial year 2007-08, the accounts with respect to which are to be finalised during the current fiscal. – www.business-standard.com