Former bosses of the central bank and the securities regulator have stressed on formation of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) to ensure the companies' quality financial reporting, officials said.
They have also blamed the serious lack of coordination between the Bangladesh Bank (BB) and the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) that often leads to misunderstanding while regulating banks and listed companies.
Their strong opinion regarding the introduction of the FRC came Tuesday at an international seminar titled "Corporate Reporting in Bangladesh, China and Japan" held at the faculty of business studies of the University of Dhaka.
The former advisor to the caretaker government and ex-chairman of the BSEC Dr. AB Mirza Azizul Islam attended the programme as chief guest while the former governor of the central bank Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed and ex-BSEC Chairman Faruq Ahmad Siddiqi were present as special guests.
Professor Durgadas Bhattacharjee, the former Vice-Chancellor of National University, presided over the seminar which was also attended by some Japanese academicians and the graduate students of accounting and other departments of faculty business studies.
At the seminar two presentations were made by Toshifumi TAKADA, a professor of Tohoku University, Japan, and Mizanur Rahman, an associate professor at faculty of business studies of the University of Dhaka.
While talking about the debate on the introduction of the FRC Dr Salehuddin Ahmed said, "How can a professional body be the regulator of the audit firms? It's the time to introduce the FRC."
He said it is a must to be sincere in implementing international standards in financial reporting.
Dr. AB Mirza Azizul Islam has said the securities regulator and other stakeholders should play a strong role to introduce the RFC.
"Hopefully, the RFC will be introduced in near future," Mr. Islam said.
He said there are some dominating shareholders who care very little for the interest of other shareholders.
"The audit committees and the chief financial officials will have to play due roles to prepare quality financial reporting," Islam said.
He said there is a very much correlation between the price sensitive information and the company fundamentals.
The former BSEC Chairman Faruq Ahmad Siddiqi said there is a lack of academic discussions on the financial reporting in the country's financial sectors.
"The practice of preparing financial reporting is a burning issue. All of us should address the issue for the sake of ensuring quality financial disclosures," Mr. Siddiqi said.
He said in Bangladesh most of the businesses and companies are dominated by family and this is an impediment in ensuring quality disclosure.
"The companies' annual reports should also be monitored very closely for the sake of quality disclosures," Mr. Siddiqi added.
In his presentations, the Japanese Professor Mr. TAKADA said the listed companies are the leaders of the capital market.
