Director General of Dubai Chamber inaugurates World Accounting Summit 2007 at Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai

The summit aims at discussing the latest developments and challenges that face the accounting sector and its impact on the regional and international financial reporting standards.

Buamim said that supporting the World Accounting Summit 2007 by Dubai Chamber goes in line with its strategy that aims at enhancing the awareness of business community and other economic sectors in Dubai, and providing them with the necessary information and services to improve their businesses, mainly for accountants and auditors.

He pointed out the importance of this conference which lies in the fact that it is the region's premier annual conference for accounting professionals that provides them with an opportunity to discuss topics related to the development of accounting profession, and the challenges that accounting and financial reporting is facing locally and regionally.

"Establishing the Auditors' Group as one of Dubai Chamber's 19 business groups that represent different economic sectors, goes in line with its crucial role in protecting the interests of Dubai business community, and in providing accounting and auditing firms with services that help enhance their competitiveness and enable them to better deal with world economic changes and adopt world standards of the best practices in accounting and international financial reporting standards," said Buamim.

He stressed Dubai Chamber's continuous coping with the development of Dubai's economic sectors, and as accounting is better considered as the language of business which grows in an appropriate environment, Dubai Chamber was keen to enhance the awareness of accountants and auditors and urge them to adopt international standards of accounting, mainly the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), to help improve their competitiveness and quality of business.

Buamim said that Dubai Chamber's efforts in boosting business competitiveness and adoption of the best international business practices highly matches the spirit of Dubai Strategic Plan which was announced by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, through which he stressed that fact that the corporations which survive the future of Dubai have to think beyond our boundaries and adopt international standards.

"The World Accounting Summit provides Dubai-based accounting firms with an opportunity to meet senior accounting professionals, experts and advisors from all over the world to interpret the IFRS and discuss its implementation to help improve the accountants' business, knowing that the Auditors' Group has earlier considered these issues in their recent meetings," said the director general of Dubai Chamber.

He added that holding this summit comes in a time after the accounting firms in the Gulf region witnessed a recent stock market decline during the last few months, and that the summit will discuss the impact of this decline on the financial results of investors and financial institutions in the UAE and Middle East region.

He said that the interpretation of IFRS would require that such a significant decline in stock market values would be treated as "impairment" in the income statements of investors holding shares whose market values have declined below the buyer's cost.

"In view of the level of price declines in most of the cases, we believe that this would have a substantial negative impact on reported profits for the year 2007, and that requires a significant degree of consistency between the reporting entities so that shareholders, potential investors and lenders can make informed decisions," he explained.

The World Accounting Summit 2007 will be discussing several topics such as the progress report on adoption, convergence and implementation of IFRS, globalization of financial reporting and its impact on the region, especially on the emerging markets, transparency and disclosure of IFRS in the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) region, the role of IFRS in capital market stability worldwide, the impact and importance of IFRS in the Middle East, the challenges faced by emerging nations in implementing IFRS, the revolution in digital reporting and its benefits for professional accountants in business and others.