Search Results for: accountancy

THE EUROPEAN Commission is to review its procedures for ensuring nuclear materials in European Union (EU) member states are not diverted from peaceful to military uses. It has released a tender for an expert to check its systems, which are coordinated by its directorate general for energy directorate E, based in Luxembourg.…

BARELY a year in office, China’s new government under President Xi Jinping has made more moves towards economic reform than the previous administration in its 10 years in power. Mr Xi has promised to reboot China’s economy by paring back regulations as well as the preferences enjoyed by the state-owned sector, which monopolises many industries, including finance.…

By Heather Tan, in Singapore The wealthy city state of Singapore seems to have glided through the global financial crisis, but the country only narrowly avoided recession and this slowdown has affected its important accounting sector. GDP growth in Singapore grew in 2012 was projected to be 1.2%, down from 4.9% the previous year. Lee Kin Wai, assistant professor of accounting at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University business school explained to Accounting & Business magazine that economic uncertainty makes companies reluctant to share as much data as they might in more stable times.

 

And this can make Singaporean accountants lives particularly difficult, especially in a country not known for robust transparency.

Lee said economic uncertainty creates “significant challenges” for firms regarding their ability and willingness to disclose information about “future-oriented assumptions” and undermines the reliability of commercial projections made in annual results.…

WHEN a senior company figure blunders in communicating through the media, the corporate and career costs can be high, but getting it right can drive sales and profits.

Examples in the debit column are rife. Gene Morphis, the CFO of Nasdaq-listed US womenswear chain Francesca’s Holding Corp was fired in May 2102 after his ‘Tweet’ message on social media site Twitter inadvertently disclosed share price-sensitive information from a board meeting in contravention of rules applied by the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).…

IN signing up to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development’s (OECD) multilateral agreement on tax information transparency, Singapore has moved to address a major paradox that applies to its banking, business and financial operations.

Singapore scores exceptionally highly in global anti-corruption indexes – in 2012 it was ranked fifth by Transparency International out of 176 nations, behind only Denmark, Finland, New Zealand and Finland, for its lack of perceived corruption.…

If financial professionals ever doubted the utility of a fully functioning state for business, Somalia has since 1991 shown how its absence can undermine personal and commercial liberty.

And the lesson is underlined by the fate of Somaliland, a breakaway east African territory that declared independence from Somalia in 1991, based on land that was a British protectorate before 1960.…

PORTUGAL’S Faro Algarve Airport may not be the first airport that leaps to mind when considering where to test-run the latest in air travel security equipment, but the airport is trialling a cutting-edge airport security system.

Located in the country’s southern Algarve region, it is a small airport with seasonal peaks and troughs of traffic that processed 5,672,377 passengers last year (2012) – the majority of whom arrived on budget carriers between June and September.…

Although proper accounting is important for developing and emerging economies – for instance, informational transparency decreases transactional costs – obstacles remain, said Evgeny Buben, Gazprom Nigeria’s CFO: “There’s a lack of political will to start the process of harmonisation and control implementation; a lack of  professionals capable of performing proper implementation; resistance from local accounting bodies and other local influential groups; resistance of local accountants and auditors to changes.”…

QATAR is a country in a hurry. Under its 22 year plan, the Qatar National Vision 2030, the country is planning to diversify away from its reliance on hydrocarbons to become a knowledge-based, sustainable economy. Some USD93 billion is being spent on education, health care and infrastructure projects to morph this former Gulf desert backwater into a cutting edge, 21st century state.…

THE RUSSIA tax manager at energy giant Shell has called for comprehensive financial and business practice reforms in his country, so that companies can reduce costs and operate in a more predictable environment. Speaking to Accountancy Futures, Andrey Sukhov said: “We need to improve the whole investment climate.”…