Sri Lanka says move to fair value accounting difficult

Nov 25, 2009 (LBO) - The global move towards fair value accounting might prove difficult for south Asian countries as they lack active markets to support such valuations, a senior Sri Lankan accountant said. Reyaz Mihular, chairman of the Accounting and Auditing Standards Committee of South Asian Federation of Accountants, said a key point of discussion at a meeting of the regional body in Colombo was new trends in Financial Reporting Standards.

"International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are increasingly moving to fair value measurement of assets and liabilities as a consequence of the current trend to fully portray the economic consequences of an entity’s performance," he said.

"This trend poses several challenges to countries in the South Asian region where we do not have active markets to support such fair valuations. We have addressed challenges such as this at our meeting."

The meeting of National Accounting Standard Setters of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka was to discuss South Asia's moves towards a single Global Accounting Standards.

It was attended by David Tweedie, Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), an international lea