China has cemented its support for convergence
of auditing standards at a meeting between the Chinese Auditing
Standards Board (CASB) and the International Auditing and Assurance
Standards Board (IAASB).
“As the largest developing country in the
world, China firmly supports the efforts of the International
Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and the IAASB to promote
international convergence of auditing standards,” Vice minister of
the Chinese Ministry of Finance and CASB chairman, Wang Jun
said.
Jun went on to say that the “fundamental
principle” behind drafting such standards will be to continually
improve them as well as achieving comprehensive convergence with
international auditing standards in line with the growth of the
Chinese economy and global trends.
“International convergence of auditing
standards—the importance of which has been further manifested
during the global financial crisis—is a strategic objective for the
IAASB and IFAC,” IAASB chairman Arnold Schilder said.
“We applaud the great efforts and the enormous
progress that China is making toward international convergence. We
hope this serves as a model for developing countries and countries
with economies in transition,” Schilder added.
The two parties previously signed a milestone
joint statement in December 2005, to establish and improve a single
set of high-quality global auditing standards, part of the response
to the trend of economic globalisation.
The IAASB recently conducted a clarity project
to boost the clarity of International Standards on Auditing (ISAs),
which involved the application of new drafting conventions to all
ISAs and substantial revisions of a number of ISAs.
