Professionalism as a Tool to Economic Growth

Professionalism as a Tool to Economic Growth

Celebrating Sixty year of historic run and this year as ICAI’s Diamond Jubilee Year, The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) organized a Diamond Jubilee Conference for its members with a theme “Professionalism as a Tool to Economic Growth" at Durbar Hall, Hotel Taj Palace, Sardar Patel Marg, New Delhi on July 11, 2009.

The Conference was inaugurated by Shri K.Rahman Khan, Hon’ble Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha in the presence of CA. Uttam Prakash Agarwal, President, ICAI, CA. Amarjit Chopra, Vice President, ICAI.

Speaking on the occasion Shri K.Rahman Khan said “I am very happy to know that in its continuous endeavor of providing sustainability to the economy, ICAI has taken various proactive measures. Starting from a member base of few hundreds, the profession has grown to a large membership of 1, 55,000. In last 60 years the profession has discharged its duties at the fullest and has contributed in the growth of country and economy. I wish ICAI grand success in years to come. ”

ICAI occupy a stellar role in national economy, Being amongst the largest accounting bodies in the world; and represented at major international forums on accountancy, the ICAI is endeavoring to position brand Indian Chartered Accountancy globally. The evolved role of the Chartered Accountants has seen him performing multi-tasking roles much beyond their core domain of accounting and auditing. And Chartered Accountants fraternity performing their roles professionally has acted a major feature in India’s progressive Economic Growth and its stability during recession period.

CA. Uttam Prakash Agarwal in his presidential address said “The Indian CA has now emerged as a complete Business Solution Provider. Nobody can now beat Indian CAs in any field. To make our members best and to compete with the changing business scenario, we have launched 12 Certification courses and we have signed 3 Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) in the recently concluded International Conference at Agra.”

He also said that “Indian CAs have now come of the age and now we are global CAs. The profession has come long way and the progress will continue till infinity. In the present global scenario, even in the time of slowdown no CA is jobless.”

The Conference acted as motivator in keeping up the spirits and encouraging the Chartered Accountants fraternity to contribute in many more areas.

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language)

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a novel way of electronic communication of business and financial data which is revolutionizing business reporting around the world and is immense utility to the capital markets and the investing community. It provides major benefits in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information. XBRL is a cutting-edge technology standard that enables faster and more cost-efficient electronic exchange of information.

The idea behind XBRL is simple. Instead of treating financial information as a block of text, essentially, the XBRL technology allows electronic tagging of each individual item of data so that computers can work on the information using a set of rules. The electronic tags that are applied are standardized and are contained in taxonomies which are essentially the dictionaries used by XBRL that define the specific tags for individual items of data. The tags are applied using a tagging tool that retrieves the tags from the standards taxonomies and applies them to whatever format the financial statements are created in, such as Microsoft Word or Excel.

Seeing the rising importance of XBRL as an effective means of communicating financial information and the plethora of benefits it has to offer, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the apex accounting body of the country, constituted the XBRL Group in the year 2007 for undertaking the development and promotion of XBRL in India. The Institute is spearheading the XBRL initiative in the country and is the provisional jurisdiction of XBRL in India. In its endeavor of providing best to its members the Institute has recently launched XBRL India website in the International Conference held at Agra from July 3-5, 2009. The website was launched by CA. Uttam Prakash Agarwal, President, ICAI in the presence of CA. Mohandas Pai, Infosys Technologies and Ms. Liv Watson, XBRL International, Vice Chair. The URL of XBRL India website is www.xbrl.org/in

The ICAI, India jurisdiction has developed the taxonomy for general purpose financial statements for commercial and industrial sector. The exposure draft of the taxonomy has already been issued and it will be sent for accreditation by XBRL, International shortly. Taxonomy for banks is under preparation and exposure draft is expected to be issued shortly.