It is a great pleasure to be able to represent the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) in Beijing today. I should like to express my appreciation of the confidence shown in the International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) by the decision of China to accelerate convergence with the ISAs; and my admiration for the way in which the CICPA has made progress in response to that decision. A similar decision has been taken by the European Union, which will shortly be going through the process of endorsing the ISAs. And there are many other countries who have similar policies.
At IAASB, we need to ensure that we write ISAs that can be adopted in jurisdictions with such different legal systems, histories and cultures. We do this, in part, by having a sound and transparent process for the development of the ISAs.