The national conference organized by The Accounting Standards Board (ASB) of ICAI in association with Western India regional council of ICAI, with its Goa branch hosting the conference at a beach resort for three days from October 10, was inaugurated by M D Mallya, chairman and managing director of Bank of Baroda on Friday October 10.

Chairman ASB- ICAI C A Amarjit Chopra, chairman Accounting Standard ICAI-CA B M Agarwal, chairman WIRC of ICAI, C A Gautam Verlekar, chairman Goa branch of WIRC, Abbas Ali Mirza International Financial Centre Dubai, CA Dhiraj Khandelwal secretary WIRC, CA Atul Parikh, vice-chairman WIRC and Preeti Mahatme, Central Council Member ICAI.
 
At the press conference addressed by M D Mallya earlier, he mentioned that IFRS was going to be the common language for all the accounting standards for capital inflow, particularly for public limited companies.
 
C A Gautam Verlekar, chairman Goa branch of WIRC, also mentioned that all the chartered accountants would get the opportunity to upgrade themselves on IFRS in the coming months, as the Institute was keen that 1,48,000 chartered accountants should be ready with this to serve the financial institutions of India and their clients.
 
International Financial Centre Dubai and the Institute of Charted Accountants of India (ICAI), as the accounting standards formulating body in the country, have always been making efforts to formulate high quality accounting standards. The ICAI after considering the current economic environment has decided that IFRSs should be adopted for public interest entities, viz., listed entities, banks and insurance companies and large sized entities from the accounting periods commencing on or after April 1, 2011.
 
In its endeavour to bring convergence with IFRS, the institute has been organizing a series of programmes on IFRS across the country. He congratulated the Accounting Standards Board, the CPE Committee, the WIRC of ICAI and the Goa Branch of ICAI for taking this initiative.
 
C A  B M Agarwal chairman said that the three-day national workshop was intended to give the participants an overview of application of IFRS in India scenario, so as to equip them to be ready to face up to the changes going to take place in the coming years. The topics have been selected to understand those concepts of IFRS, which are new to the Indian scenario, and he expressed the confidence, that the members shall be immensely benefited by the deliberations made at the three day-conference.
 
The conference was about convergence with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), which has gained momentum in recent years all over the world.  More than 100 countries currently require or permit the use of, or have a policy of convergence with IFRS. Internationally, in so far as cross-border investments are concerned, a non-IFRS compliant country is perceived as an additional risk factor.  In this scenario, India being an important emerging economy in the world cannot stand isolated. Therefore, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the premier accounting body in the country, decided to converge with IFRS issued by the IASB for the public interest entities such as listed entities, banks and insurance entities and large-sized entities from the accounting periods commencing on or after April 1, 2011.  The ministry of corporate affairs, government of India, has also stated that India would converge with IFRS from April 1, 2011.
 
To implement this decision, the ICAI is taking various necessary steps, such as, formulation of Indian equivalent of IFRS at the earliest, launching IFRS 75-80 hours certificate level course to educate the concerned people about IFRS, holding seminars and other programmes on IFRS all over the country. In this direction, this conference held from October 10 to 12, 2008 provided the participants an opportunity to acquaint themselves and appreciate the nuances of the IFRS, which were discussed by the eminent speakers during the conference.