IAI President Presents AFA’s Feedback At The G20 Accountancy Summit

The President of the Indonesian Institute Accountants (IAI), Mr. Ahmadi Hadibroto was invited recently to participate in the G-20 Accountancy Summit on July 23-24 in London the which was held by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) to obtain the perspectives of accountancy institutes from the G-20 economies on how the profession can best contribute to strengthening the global financial system.

The G-20 is a group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 economies: 19 of the world's largest national economies, plus the European Union (EU). Collectively, the G-20 economies comprise 85%[ of global gross national product, 80% of world trade (including EU intra-trade) and two-thirds of the world population. The main objective of the Accountancy Summit is to identify and summarize the collective viewpoints of IFAC and accountancy institutes in G-20 countries and to submit these to the G-20 Working Groups prior to their September meeting.

Although officially representing his country at the summit, Mr Hadibroto, who is also the Immediate Past President of the ASEAN Federation of Accountants(AFA) took the time and effort to garner the other AFA member bodies views and opinions on the main issues at the summit and included it in his final presentation to the Summit.

At the Summit the participants unanimously agreed that the public interest would best be served by a single set of high-quality, principles-based financial reporting and auditing standards for listed and public interest entities.

The group stressed the importance of having balanced views in the standard-setting process and ensuring that there is no undue influence from any one stakeholder group. They also emphasized the need for the International Accounting Standards Board to have a robust governance structure that will ensure its effectiveness and independence.

In addition, summit participants called upon governments to follow the same high standards of financial reporting as their private sector counterparts and to adopt International Public Sector Accounting Standards.