HE Eng. Hamad Buamim, Director General, Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry delivered the keynote address at The World Accounting Summit, which opened today (Sunday 27 May) at the Madinat Jumeirah, Mina A’Salam Hotel in Dubai. During his speech Buamim called on regional industry professionals to raise their concerns, in particular regarding interpretation and adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) so that the industry can move forward together throughout the Middle East.
“There are many controversial issues that accountants the world over, including the Middle East, are facing these days. Contentious issues such as interpretation need to be addressed and a common approach found to resolve these critical matters,” commented Buamim.
One such issue highlighted by Buamim was the volatile performance of the region’s stock markets over the past twelve months. Regional stock exchange capitalisation breached the US$ 1 trillion mark last year, but subsequently suffered significant declines and today the markets are still well below the previous year’s record highs. Not only did this hit individual investors, but many companies that had invested surplus funds in shares in order to generate income and achieve capital gains.
To help avoid such massive swings and ultimately, in the case of the GCC markets, major losses, it is important that there is a significant degree of consistency by reporting entities from one year to the next (and between reporting entities within the region) so that shareholders, potential investors and lenders can make better informed decisions.
The ‘Auditors Group’ formed by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) recently addressed interpretation and other contentious issues, at a general meeting of their members and representatives from the ministries and UAE regulators.
Also speaking at the Summit, Abbas Ali Mirza, Chairman of the ‘Auditors Group’ of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) added, “With the effects of globalisation multinational companies have realised that in order to grow and compete internationally they have to embrace a single global marketplace. If accounting is considered as the language of business, entities operating in the global arena need a common international medium of communication. The IFRS is clearly emerging as a global financial reporting benchmark, however if these international standards, which are primarily ‘principle-based’, are not applied uniformly across the region, their effectiveness to facilitate international comparability of financial reporting will be in question.”
World Accounting Summit, which runs until Wednesday 30 May, is an international, strategic, high-level update on recent developments from the global standards setters, principal advisers and key users of international accounting standards.
