Requirements eased on auditing firms (07/11)
06/08/2010 - 82 Lượt xem
MOF’s decision to ease their expectations of auditing firms stems from their desire to increase the number of companies eligible to provide auditing services to listed companies. Vietnam now has several thousand public companies and over 200 listed companies with only 11 auditing firms.
Vo Hung Tien, Director General of A&C, said that the company now has more than 1,000 clients, including foreign investors, foreign offices, foreign businessmen and Vietnamese enterprises. He said that the number of clients listing companies keeps increasing.
The 11 auditing companies are now overloaded and, therefore, important steps in the auditing process are ignored. Current regulations require auditors to attend shareholders’ meetings, but they are often unable.
The idea of lowering expectations of auditing firms concerns investors that quality will further worsen.
An expert said that easing the requirements on auditing firms is not a suitable solution to the problem, especially as Vietnam further integrates into the world economy. He said that it would be better to encourage current standardized auditing firms to expand their business scope and encourage other firms to meet the requirements.
Huy Nam, a securities expert in HCM City, said that with the more auditors able to serve listed companies, the overload would be eased and auditors would be able to perform their services better and according to regulations, all while providing clients with more choices. Also, fees will decrease and auditors will have to compete against each other, performing better than others to secure higher paying clients and jobs.
Mr Nam says that the solution to the current problem is to strengthen, better supervise and closely examine the services being provided by auditing firms.
Source: DTCK.
