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Africa urged to embrace int'l accounting standards to attract investments

Xinhua, October 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

Global body for professional accountants on Monday urged the African continent to embrace international accounting standards in order to attract more investments, especially from China.

Richard Staunton, Head of Sales Global Market at Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), said that Chinese firms are seeking to expand their operations globally.

"So African nations will need to implement globally recognized accounting standards so that Chinese firms are assured that their investments will be well taken care off," Staunton said in Nairobi.

Staunton said that as the Chinese economy has grown, their homegrown firms have also embraced global financial reporting standards.

"Therefore their trade partners will benefit from Chinese technology and expertise if they also to embrace internationally recognized accounting standards," he said,noting that Africa has many bookkeepers but has insufficient number of qualified accountants.

"We project that in the next five years, Sub-Saharan Africa will need 200,000 accountants so as to meet the growing demand of professionals in the sector," he said.

Staunton noted that there have been cases where international donors have withheld funds meant for projects in Africa as the beneficiaries lack proper accounting standards.

George Njari, Head of ACCA Kenya, said that Kenya has only 15,000 accountants yet it has over 300,000 registered companies.

"This means that there is a huge deficit of accountants, which will expand unless urgent measures are undertaken," Njari said.

In the past decade, favorable business climate has attracted both domestic and foreign investors into Kenya.

He stated that Kenya should adopt internationally recognized accounting standards in order to benefit from globalization. Endit