ACCA welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on this consultation on Deepening UK trade relationships with Indonesia, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay. We believe that in order to maximise the impact of UK professional accountancy expertise, and to facilitate greater professional mobility, a focused approach centered on mutual recognition of qualifications, enhanced regulatory cooperation, and capacity building would be most helpful.

We make the following suggestions to the DBIST:

• Prioritise mutual recognition of UK professional accountancy in Indonesia, the Philippines, UAE and Uruguay through structured regulator-to-regulator dialogue and transparent competency-based frameworks.
• Acknowledge and accommodate in its advocacy of the UK accountancy profession that qualifications for professional accountancy organisation membership are oftentimes different to qualifications for regulated roles.  The UK Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) Professional Body Supervision oversees five Recognised Qualifying Bodies (RQBs) that can offer the Audit Qualification, of which ACCA is one.  ACCA is supportive of engagement on a regulator-to-regulator basis as it is impartial and therefore levels the playing field for all UK recognised bodies as well as promoting the professional services sector. The FRC also has a non-statutory role for oversight of the regulation by the professional accountancy bodies of their members beyond those that are statutory auditors.  It is therefore in the best interests of the UK regulator and professional bodies that recognition at both membership and regulated roles is represented fairly, equitably and transparently in dialogue with regulators and professional bodies in other markets.
• Seek improved educational recognition of UK professional qualifications for academic credit, public sector recruitment, and professional development in all four economies, engaging relevant education and regulatory authorities.
• Support alignment with IFRS sustainability disclosure standards (ISSB) and promote cooperation on sustainability reporting and assurance as a bilateral agenda item, particularly in Indonesia, the Philippines, UAE and Uruguay.
• Advocate for ambitious professional mobility provisions, including streamlined visa and licensing processes for accounts and finance professionals.
• Deepen regulatory cooperation with partner economies on audit quality, digital transformation, future finance skills, and market innovation, particularly in UAE.
• Encourage Uruguay to establish transparent mechanisms for recognising professional qualifications and initiate relevant government and stakeholder dialogue.

To read our response in full, please download the document found on this page.