The Malaysian Accountant - The Malaysian Institute Of Certified ...

updates on recent developments at the Institute and in thebusiness environment. It is inspiring to note that we havereceived positive feedback from members on theseinitiatives.The President stressed that the Council is consciousthat in the light of an increasingly international andcompetitive marketplace, there is an urgent need to buildCPA Malaysia as a global brand that is equivalent to theChartered Accountants and Certified Public Accountantsdesignations of the more established accounting bodies inthe world. The Institute continued to take proactive stepstowards seeking mutual recognition arrangements withthese professional bodies. The President reported that theAssociation of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) hascompleted an independent review of the CPA Malaysiaqualification. MICPA and ACCA have finalised in workingout a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) to set out theterms and basis upon which recognition for membership ofqualified members of each body may occur. Under theMRA, members of MICPA will be eligible to be admitted toACCA membership either:• on achieving 5 years’ relevant post qualificationprofessional experience and satisfactorily completingeither the ACCA online Professional Ethics Module(which is non-examination based) or the ACCACritical Incident Questionnaire; or• Passing ACCA’s Paper P1, The Professional Accountant.The MRA will be signed in a few weeks. The success ofthe endeavour should provide an opportunity for youngMalaysian CPAs to attain an internationally recognisedqualification and will further increase the career mobilityof Malaysian accountants across borders and enhance theopportunities of exporting professional services.The President informed members that the Instituteregistered a total of 147 new students comprisingpredominantly graduates with accounting degrees. Ascompared to previous year, there had been a significantThe AGM session in progressA member seeking clarificationdecline in new student intake of 51% due to increasecompetition from foreign accountancy bodies. After takinginto account, students who were excluded from the registerof students for non-payment of annual fees, students whoterminated their registration and students who wereadmitted as members or provisional members, a netdecrease of 8% in student population was recordedcompared to 2005. Presently, the Institute has a totalnumber of 759 registered students.At the Extraordinary General Meeting held last year,members had passed the resolution to pave the way for theadmission of a new class of members who shall be entitledto use the designation Certified Financial Accountant(CFiA). The Institute will promote the CFiA qualification tograduates undertaking the Bachelor of Accountancy degreewith the aim to expand and strengthen our membershipbase. The Education and Training Committee is in theprocess of finalising the syllabus and study materials forthe CFiA Professional Competence Programme before theprogramme is officially launched in August 2007.The Institute had undertaken a review of theAdvanced Stage Examination (ASE). The ASE has beenrestructured into four modules from the earlier threemodules. Module D, which covers accounting, financialreporting and auditing has been split into two separatemodules as the syllabus has become increasinglychallenging resulting from the changes in internationalaccounting and auditing standards. The new Module Dfocuses on advanced topics in accounting and financialreporting whilst the new Module E focuses on competence30 | The Malaysian Accountant | June/August 2007 www.micpa.com.my