The chair of China's largest domestically-owned accounting firm has claimed Australia's experience with regulatory reform will be valuable for the development of financial services in Asia.
ShineWing Certified Public Accountants chairman Zhang Ke said China's accounting sector had developed rapidly in the past few years and could learn from the regulatory changes now facing Australia.
"There definitely will be certain strengths in both sides for either industry to learn from, for argument sake, the Chinese accounting industry has experienced rapid development in recent years, which is supported by CICPA (Chinese Institute of Certified Public Acountants) as well as the government," Ke said.
"Based on these reasons, there are a number of large accounting firms emerged in China and they experienced rapid development and they are able to provide comprehensive accounting service to their clients."
In the past five years, from the big four firms in China there had been 12 accounting firms that expanded by more than 1000 employees and their revenue exceeded $300 million renminbi, he said.
Ke, who is in Australia to visit ShineWing's Australian alliance partner, Hall Chadwick, said the main business for accounting firms in China currently was auditing, whereas accounting firms in Australia provided auditing and other related services, such as consulting and advising on mergers and acquisitions.
"The experience in these areas would be very valuable for the development of Chinese accounting firms," he said.
Last year, Hall Chadwick aligned itself with ShineWing through its Melbourne operation.
In light of the company's close association, the Australian group has decided to change the company name to ShineWing Hall Chadwick.
Commenting on the alignment, ShineWing Hall Chadwick non-executive chair David Fairfull said: "We see cross-border with China as a major growth area in the future and we see it both long term as well as short term."
Fairfull said the two areas the company intended to concentrate on were resources and agriculture.
