Academics are counting on the 'Dragon'

Accounting standards and practices in the SAR, the mainland and Taiwan could be consolidated with the establishment of an academic alliance.

The alliance, known as the Dragon League, links the School of Accounting at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CU) with the accounting departments at Peking University, Fudan University in Shanghai, and National Taiwan University in Taipei.

It was established to promote joint activities such as faculty and student exchange visits, the exchange of teaching material and research and case-writing among two or more of the participating schools.

The alliance will also provide senior execu tive programmes and host academic conferences.

Professor Simon Ho Shun-man, director of the School of Accounting at CU and president of the Hong Kong Academic Accounting Association, said the league could enhance the competence of mainland accounting professionals and foster co-operation.

He said that, as a result of rapid economic growth since the 1980s, the industry-oriented accounting standards of the mainland had become inadequate.

Competent accounting professionals were also in critically short supply.

Professor Ho said the setting up of accounting standards promulgated in 1993 had substantially improved the quality of financial accounting and reporting of listed companies and facilitated the development of the capital markets of the mainland.

'As Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei are the most important cities in the Chinese region, it is very important for accounting professionals and academics to examine these issues thoroughly,' he said.

The league's inaugural ceremony was held recently at the CU. Officiating were Professor Ambrose King Yeo-chi, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of CU, Eric Li Ka-cheung, chairman of the Advisory Board on Accounting Studies of CU, Professor Lee Kam-hon, Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration of CU, Professor Zhang Wenxian from Fudan University, Professor Wang Liyan from Peking University, and Professor Jimmy Tsay Yang-tzong from National Taiwan University.