Pakistan is a young country that is “hungry for education”,
according to Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)
director Andrew Harding.
The UK-based institute recently opened an office in the Southern
Asian nation and Harding told The Accountant it is not an
unusual location to target.
Pakistan has an estimated population of more than 170 million and
Harding said more than half the people are less than 19-years-old.
Until the current year, there has been GDP growth of 6 percent to 8
percent.
“You also have good standards of education in the country and a
need for professional skills to support that growth and to support
business,” Harding said.
There is a local management accounting body, the Institute of Cost
and Management Accountants of Pakistan, which Harding said CIMA has
an “ongoing relationship” with.
The two institutes are currently involved in discussions regarding
credit or fast track options between the two designations.
CIMA already has a small group of members in Pakistan and about 200
students have been registering annually, despite there being no
local infrastructure or tuition in place.
The new office in Karachi will help support the students and a
network of five tuition providers has been set up. There are plans
for this to expand.
CIMA’s other recent international projects have been pushes across
India and China.
“We have been really encouraged by what we are seeing this year,”
Harding said. “We are seeing interest at a much higher level than
we expected and that is in spite of the global downturn.
“What we are seeing is business saying ‘right, we need proper
accountability, we need proper business planning, and when we look
at professionals that can deliver that, we need to look far more
towards CIMA and those management accounting skills than perhaps
the more traditional chartered accounting skills we have looked at
in the past.”
CIMA
Statistics
Worldwide members: 77,000
Southern Asia members and students: 16,441
Middle East members and students: 1,337
Source: CIMA
