(SINGAPORE) Singapore's accounting sector grew by an annual 6.5 per cent in the last three years, nearly twice as fast compared with the growth rate in the past decade.
However, this was lower than comparative figures in other professional services such as legal, R&D and consultancy.
Yesterday, Juthika Ramanathan, CEO of Accounting & Corporate Regulatory Authority, said that the accounting sector posted average growth of 3.4 per cent in the past decade - lower than the 3.8 per cent seen in business & management consultancy or the 7.5 per cent in other business services.
And between 2005 and 2007, the sector expanded by about 6.5 per cent each year, in contrast with the 7 per cent and 8.7 per cent seen in business & management consultancy and other business services respectively.
Ms Ramanathan was speaking at the Public Accountants Conference yesterday, where she presented some key findings from a recent ACRA survey.
In her speech, she noted Singapore's status as a trusted international business and financial centre, adding that this provides accounting firms with good growth opportunities.
While the Big Four accounting firms make up a small portion of the accounting entities here, they control 74 per cent of the audit market share of listed companies.
In contrast, small accounting firms account for the majority of Singapore's accounting entities, but only audit 2 per cent of Singapore's listed companies.
Therefore, ACRA believes there are different growth opportunities for different sectors.
For example, the Big Four and the medium-sized accounting entities may have better opportunities going regional, while the small accounting entities should benefit more from looking at growth outside the audit market.
Small accounting entities' best growth opportunities may be to help SMEs meet market expectations of higher quality governance, financial reporting and transparency.
The study also showed that talent crunch remains the top challenge for the industry.
For this reason, ACRA will be reviewing its registration of public accountants with a view to broadening talent pools and pathways for the profession.
Separately, the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore (ICPAS) did a study that found that some 73 per cent of public accounting firms are now operating below their ideal capacity, while some 67 per cent of them said they are sourcing for audit staff from overseas.
ICPAS vice-president Ernest Kan, who also spoke at the event, noted that difficulties remain in hiring foreign professionals such as 'high wage levels, quality and language and cultural barriers'.
Therefore, he advised accounting firms here to provide attractive remuneration, work-life balance and training and development programmes for their employees to attract talent.
On its part, ICPAS is reaching out to undergraduates and students among other things, and expects its membership to exceed 20,000 by the year-end.
A third speaker, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) chief executive Allen Blewitt, noted the growing mobility among the younger professionals and urged firms here to leverage on Singapore's reputation as a 'clean and green' city-state to attract those talents here.
This article was first published in The Business Times on 11 July 2008.
