FOREIGN SHORES SET TO OPEN UP FOR CAs

If you are a Chartered Accountant and jealous of techies and doctors finding better opportunities abroad, your turn has come now. If all goes well, CAs will be able to pursue their profession on foreign shores from 2008. thought it is too early to quantify the number of CAs who will find jobs abroad, any migration would only add to the existing demand for the qualified CAs in the country. According to industry bodies, by 2010, there would be demand for about 50,000 CAs in India. Currently, there are about 1.3 lakh practicing CAs and about 6000 graduate every year.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI ) the apex body of CAs, has quickened the pace of negotiations for mutual recognition with its overseas counterparts like CPA Australia, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA ). ? We have completed all formalities from our side with the respective bodies in these countries. A positive reply from at least one of them is expected by January end, while the rest may comply during the year ? Sunil Talati, President of ICAI told TOI

Mutual recognition agreements will enable Indian CAs to work in these countries and vice versa. ? By such recognition, our CAs will have practicing right for attestation of financial statements in the local jurisdiction. They can set up offices in other countries and practice as usual, subject to local laws ? Talati explains.

To a query on any need for CAs to have additional qualifications, he says that while the mutual recognition is an attempt to recognize each other per se, in practice, it is quite possible that the respective institute prescribes some set of papers to acclimatize them with the local laws.

The ICAI president says that for employment abroad, the mutual recognition of qualification is not required. However, it will facilitate outward mobility of Indian CAs in large numbers, while the average starting salary for CAs is said to be catching up with that of MBAs at around over Rs 6 lakhs per annum, it more than trebles in developed nations.

Expressing happiness at the greater prospects for Indian CAs going global, K Narasimha Murthy, a leading Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant, who is on boards of IDBI and LIC housing finance, exercises caution that it is not only mutual beneficial but a mutual loss too.

With MNCs queuing up to enter India, foreign accounting firms will flock to India and bring in their personal here. It will benefit in terms of greater employment for our CAs, but there is bleak chance of our firms setting up offices abroad. There is a considerable shortage of CAs in Australia and Canada, and to that extent our CAs mobility will move up there, murthy adds.


Source: The Times of India 26th December 2007