| Summary: | The gap between international accounting practices and the practices in China is an obstacle to the exchange of accounting information between China and other countries. With the increasing importance of China in the world economy, the development of an 'unified' accounting language is becoming a very importance and urgent task for China. This project begins with a review on the current accounting and reporting, as well as auditing practices in China. The reasons for the differences between China and international practices are analyzed and highlighted. Using the latest accounting standard pronouncements in 1999 as a platform, an empirical study is conducted to evaluate the impact of the pronouncements on the reported performance of corporations. The pronouncements include changes on the assessments of accounts receivable and bad debts, valuation of inventories, and valuation of current and long-term investments. The study analyses the published annual reports of 164 listed companies in China, with particular references to the 1999 accounting standard pronouncements. Comparing to the new requirements for bad debt provision, it is found that to a large extent, accounts receivable were overstated with inadequate provision prior to the change. Relatively, the impact of inventory and investment valuation adjustments is less significant. The study also attempts to establish the reaction of stock market before and after the pronouncements. It is found that the stock market reacted rationally during the pre- and post-pronouncement periods.
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