Economy

Markets

Industries

Insights

Reports

Events

EU grants equivalence to China's accounting rules

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-13 11:44

The European Commission decided on Friday to grant equivalence to the accounting rules of six foreign countries including China as from next year.

Under the decision, the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAPs) applied by China, the United States, Japan, Canada, the Republic of Korea and India were found to be equivalent to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as adopted by the European Union (EU).

The equivalence will take effect in January.

The EU has the objective of arriving at a common set of worldwide accounting standards for listed companies. For the interim, a key part of this strategy is to eliminate existing costly and burdensome reconciliation requirements between the EU and its key trading partners.

Through decisions on equivalence, foreign issuers listed in the EU will be allowed to continue preparing their accounts using their GAAP instead of having to restate their financial statements using the EU's IFRS, with millions of dollars to be saved a year.

"Today's adoption by the Commission is a momentous step. It marks the culmination of important work spanning several years," said EU Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy.

The Commission made the decision following positive opinions given by EU member states and the European Parliament.

But the EU's executive arm said it will review the situation of China, Canada, the Republic of Korea and India by 2011 at the latest.