Certified Management Accountants to get recognition as auditors

The days of 2% and 3% growth, minus growth are far behind." These growth patterns are attributed to an increase in commercial and domestic agriculture, due to certain policy decisions and good climate. Today, the problems in domestic agriculture have to do with purchase and storage, not production.

The Society of Certified Management Accountants (SCMA), of Sri Lanka will receive necessary recognition as a professional accounting body in the near future.

According to President of the SCMA and Board of Investment (BOI) Chairman, Lakshman Watawala, Minister of Trade, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle is initiating action to incorporate the body by an Act of Parliament. Watawala, speaking at the inauguration of SCMA's ‘Business Performance and Value Creation Conference’ recently, said he faced a lot of obstacles when establishing the SCMA in 2000 but that value for money was created. "Today we have 6900 students registered for the CMA, 1200 members, and 120 who have already passed the final exam."

"Business performance and value creation is one of the core functions of management accountants," said Watawala.

The SCMA is looking closely at the IT and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) sectors. The BPO sector in particular,where important developments in accounting have taken place. "Today, we are looking at a total of 75,000 students in the accounting profession," Watawala said adding that they were to play a vital role in taking the country forward. Two international speakers were present at the inauguration of the conference such as President of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants (ICWA) of India, Dhananjay V. Joshi and Professor Khawaja Amjad Saeed, Past President of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants (ICMA) of Pakistan and South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA).

Joshi said the era of when the United States sneezes and the rest of the world catches a cold was no more adding that, "Asia and the Indian subcontinent is a great power where there is rapid growth and development," he said. More than 50% of the world’s GDP comes from the Asian region. "The consumer power and spending power has increased by 7% in Asia and only 3% in the US," Joshi said. He added that India is targeting its growth rate to enter double digits from its current rate of 8%. "Sometime back, it was thought that the population was a crutch but we have found that our population has become an asset to us. This is demonstrated by China and India.”

Saeed advocated a Knowledge Based Economy or KBE. According to him, the world was asking for good governance, better quality of life, higher standards of living, peace and tranquility, "Political leaders should forget their political agendas and concentrate on the economic emancipation of the downtrodden. It's not a time to fight but a time to fight hunger, poverty and unemployment, things which are retarding the social development of the country. South Asia is a great region but its misfortune is that it has been a sleeping giant," Saeed said. "We are number one in the world in terms of irrigated areas and we’re number two in the whole world in railway development. We are the only region where interfaith continues to be strengthened. We are the only area that has the largest population of English speakers."

Governor of the Central Bank, Nivard Cabraal in his keynote address said the country was the people, and those involved in economic growth and economic activity are contributing to growth. He added that it was important that people think positively and have an optimistic frame of mind. "In the mornings when we read the newspapers, there are columns of doom that try to say we are going down the wrong path but there are so many good things happening. We had the lowest rate of unemployment in our history. We had the highest export figures ever last month. It didn't just happen. All of you contributed to it. We have a very healthy balance of payment. These are all good things. We should be happy about it." He said that 50% of economic activity is concentrated in the western province but this must be changed. "The dynamics of economic growth is not only propelled by what has been done but also by our expectations and our own attitudes."

Minister of Public Administration and Home Affairs, Sarath Amunugama said Asia was the economic powerhouse of the world with India and China, setting the pace for world economic growth.

Adding that in the next decade, there a tremendous spurt in economic growth and the growth trajectory would be powered by India and China. "We have to rethink our policies and the manner in which we are going to achieve our growth targets," Amunugama said, adding that 8% annual growth for Sri Lanka was possible. "The days of 2% and 3% growth, minus growth are far behind." These growth patterns are attributed to an increase in commercial and domestic agriculture, due to certain policy decisions and good climate. Today, the problems in domestic agriculture have to do with purchase and storage, not production. "The services sector has been doing extremely well, largely due to the efficiency of our professionals in that sector," Amunugama said. State of the art thinking and performance by professionals, particularly by accountants in the services and manufacturing sector has seen both sectors developing and improving.

Amunugama said on a recent meeting with high government officials in Australia that , "One thing they unanimously mentioned was the high quality of our Sri Lankan professionals. In Australia, in many companies, Sri Lankans and people born in Sri Lanka provide leadership; we have the capacity to answer the growing needs of the next decade."

He also pointed out that training today in Sri Lanka was too limited, and there was a need for bilingual education, the need for greater emphasis on IT, mathematics, accountancy and those types of categories. "It will be the efforts of the government in the coming years to streamline the education system."