Cabinet approves MoU between ICAI and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand

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This provides an opportunity to the ICAI members to expand their professional horizons and to foster working relations between the two accounting institutes.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) will have an opportunity to play the leadership role in addressing new challenges facing the profession in a globalized environment.

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has approved a fresh Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ).

Impact:

The MOU intends to develop mutually beneficial relationship in the best interest of members, students and their organizations and is expected to provide an opportunity to the ICAI members to expand their professional horizons and to foster working relations between the two accounting institutes. The two accountancy institutes will have an opportunity to play the leadership role in addressing new challenges facing the profession in a globalized environment.

Benefits:

The engagement between the two Institutes is expected to result in greater employment opportunities for Indian Chartered Accountants and also greater remittances back to India.

Details:

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) & Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) would mutually recognize the qualification and admit the Members in good standing by prescribing a bridging mechanism between the two Institutes. The ICAI and CA ANZ aim to establish a mutual co-operation framework for the advancement of accounting knowledge, professional and intellectual development, advancement of the interests of their respective members and contribute positively to the development of the accounting profession in Australia, New Zealand and India.

Implementation strategy and Targets:

The MoU provides for mutual recognition of qualification of members of other body, who have achieved membership by completing the Examination, professional program and practical experience membership requirements of the two parties.

Background:

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is a statutory body established by an Act of Parliament of India, The Chartered Accountants Act, 1949′, to regulate the profession of Chartered Accountancy in India. Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ), emerged from the merger of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants in October 2014.

Source: Cabinet approves MoU between The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and CAANZ and MRA between ICAI and CPA Australia (21-04-2021)

India ranks 130th in ease of doing business index

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India continues to rank low at 130th position in terms of ease of doing business, with the country seeing little or no improvement in dealing with construction permits, getting credit and other parameters.

In the World Bank’s latest ‘Doing Business’ report, India’s place remained unchanged from last year’s original ranking of 130 among the 190 economies that were assessed on various parameters. However, the last year’s ranking has been now revised to 131 from which the country has improved its place by one spot.

The government has been making efforts to further improve the ease of doing business and aims to bring the country in the top 50.

Expressing disappointment over no change in India’s ranking in the World Bank’s index on ease of doing business, Indian government regretted that the report did not take into consideration 12 key reforms undertaken by the government.

When it comes to ‘distance to frontier’ — a measurement of the gap between an economy’s performance and the best practice score of 100 — India’s score has improved to 55.27 this year from 53.93 last year.

India is the only country for which the report has a box dedicated to its ongoing economic reforms.

The list of countries in the Doing Business 2017 is topped by New Zealand while Singapore is ranked second. It is followed by Denmark, Hong Kong, South Korea, Norway, the UK, the US, Sweden and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Neighbouring Pakistan is ranked 144th in the list.

On the basis of reforms undertaken, the top 10 improvers are Brunei Darussalam, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Belarus, Indonesia, Serbia, Georgia, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

A record 137 economies around the world have adopted key reforms that make it easier to start and operate small and medium-sized businesses, the report said.

Developing countries carried out more than 75 per cent of the 283 reforms in the past year, with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for over one-quarter of all reforms, it added.

“What we have seen is a remarkable effort on the part of the government to implement business reforms. It looks like we are going to have to wait for another year or so. But the direction of change is fundamentally a very significant one,” Global Indicators Group Director Augusto Lopez-Claros told PTI in an interview.

The rankings are based on ten parameters — starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

India has improved its ranking with respect to various areas. In terms of getting electricity, the country’s position has jumped to 26th spot from 51st place last year.

When it comes to trading across borders, the ranking has moved up one place to 143, and in enforcing contracts the rise is of six spots to 172nd position.

However, with respect to starting a business, the ranking has slipped four places to 155th spot and in the case of dealing with construction permits by one rank to 185th.

As per the report, India’s ranking in terms of protecting minority investors dropped to 13th place from 10th position last year.

With regard to getting credit, the ranking has fallen by two places to 44.

Explaining as to why India’s reform efforts is not being reflected in the ease of doing business report, Lopez-Claros said it very often takes some time for the reforms implemented by governments about the regulatory environment to be felt on the ground by the business community.

Rita Ramalho, Manager of the Doing Business project said that there were in fact improvements this year.

“There are four areas of improvement this year in India getting electricity, trading across border, enforcing contracts and paying taxes,” Ramalho told PTI.

India’s ranking is based on the study of the system in the two cities of Mumbai and New Delhi.

“The reason why there is no real movement in the ranking is more to do with the fact that other countries are also moving. In absolute terms India, does improve significantly.

There aren’t many countries that improved more than India in terms of absolute number,” Ramalho said.

The ‘Doing Business’ project provides objective measures of business regulations for local firms in economies and selected cities at the sub-national level.

The World Bank is emphasising that countries pay attention to what it calls “distance to frontier” which is an absolute metric, Lopez-Claros said.

“There has been actually substantial increase in the last 12 months in India by couple of percentage points, which is quite large,” he noted.

Source: http://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-politics/india-ranks-130th-in-ease-of-doing-business-index/story/238944.html

India jumps 19 places in World Bank’s logistics performance index

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India’s logistics performance at its key international gateways has improved in the last two years, according to a World Bank report released on Tuesday.

In the World Bank’s biennial measure of international supply chain efficiency, called Logistics Performance Index, India’s ranking has jumped from 54 in 2014 to 35 in 2016.

While Germany tops the 2016 rankings, India is ahead of comparatively advanced economies like Portugal and New Zealand. In 2016, India’s international supply chain efficiency was at 75% of top-ranked Germany, said the report titled Connecting to Compete: 2016 Trade Logistics in the Global Economy. This is an improvement over the 66% efficiency when compared to the leader (again Germany) in 2014.

Better performance in logistics will not only boost programmes, such as Make in India, by enabling India to become part of the global supply chain, it can also help increase trade. In 2015-16, India’s foreign trade shrank by around 15%.

The Logistics Performance Index analyses countries across six components: efficiency of customs and border management clearance, quality of trade and transport infrastructure, ease of arranging competitively priced shipments, competence and quality of logistics services, ability to track and trace consignments, and the frequency with which shipments reach consignees within scheduled or expected delivery times.

It is computed from the survey responses of about 1,051 logistics industry professionals.

Programmes, such as Make in India, and improvements in infrastructure have helped India improve its logistical performance, said Arvind Mahajan, partner and national head (energy, infrastructure and government) at KPMG India, a consultancy. He also said that the emergence of skilled professionals and technological improvements that have enabled services such as track-and-tracing have helped India close the gap with leaders.

That said, Logistics Performance Index does not address how easy or difficult it is to move goods to the hinterland. For that, World Bank has another measure—a domestic LPI which analyzes a country’s performance over four factors: infrastructure, services, border procedures and supply chain reliability.

While not all yardsticks are comparable across countries, there are some which show that India still has some way to go.

For instance, only 69% of shipments from India meet the quality criteria, compared to 72% for China and 77% for Kenya. On the other hand, it takes two and three days to clear shipments, without and with inspection, respectively—numbers comparable to China but longer than what it takes in top-ranked Germany.

Similarly, India has an average of 5 forms required for import or export, compared to 4.5 for China and 2 for Germany.

In this regard, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has the potential to revolutionize the transport industry in India, said Capt. Uday Palsule, former managing director of Spear Logistics Pvt. Ltd. “Inter-state travel time will be drastically reduced if the hurdle of checking documents at every state border is done away with,” he said. It will also help boost the returns of the trucking industry and feed into better performance of the logistics sector, added Palsule.

Source: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/aqBXOSWqMObUMUAffuGH6I/India-jumps-19-places-in-World-Banks-logistics-performance.html