The 88th AFA Council Meeting, 9 Sep 2006, Singapore

The 88th AFA Council Meeting was held on 9 September 2006 in Singapore. The meeting was attended by representatives of its Primary Members from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Representatives of its Associate Members present were CPA Australia and ICAA.

Issues discussed at the meeting, among others were:

Amendments of AFA Constitution and By-Laws
The meeting agreed that member bodies should review the AFA Constitution and By-Laws again and submit any changes to the Secretary General for discussion at the next AFA Council Meeting.

AFA Strategic Plan
Member bodies assigned to the projects identified under the 2006-2007 AFA Strategic Plan were requested to update the Council on the plans

Progress of the AFA Roundtable Discussion on SMEs
The International Federation of Accountants’ (IFAC) Small and Medium Practices (SMP) Forum held on 3 July 2006 in Hong Kong stimulated interesting and constructive debates and exchange of ideas as to what IFAC and the international profession’s response should be on a range of issues currently facing SMPs and small- and medium-sized entities (SMEs).

The forum provided a unique opportunity for representatives from IFAC member bodies, regional accountancy bodies, other non-member professional accountancy organizations, and other international organizations to discuss a number of pressing issues currently facing many, if not most, of IFAC’s membership.

AFA Council evaluated the current situation of the AFA programme on SMEs and decided that it should not wait for the IFAC-SMEs standards and it is unsure if the standard developed by IFAC would suite the needs of AFA member bodies. Hence, AFA will try to explore the possibility to develop standards that would be suitable for the region. The challenge for AFA is that most of its member bodies do not have the authority on standard setting since each country has a separate accounting standard board. It was decided that AFA should wait for the exposure draft issued by IASB and will then give its comments to it.

Venue of the 89th AFA Council Meeting
The 89th AFA Council Meeting will be held on 26-27 January 2007 in Bangkok, Thailand. The meeting was also informed that IFAC is visiting Thailand to evaluate the SMO Compliance Programme and Council member agreed that a meeting be arranged with the IFAC representatives.