On July 25, 2023, the Fifth “Belt and Road” National Accounting Standards Cooperation Forum was successfully held at Xiamen National Accounting Institute. Delegates from accounting standards-setting bodies of nine countries, including Cambodia, China, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, participated in the Forum in an integrated format of in-person meeting and video conference. Zhu Zhongming, Vice Minister of Finance of China, attended the Forum via video and delivered an opening speech.

Zhu Zhongming pointed out that relying on the platform of the Cooperation Forum, all participants have actively shared experience in standards development and implementation, fully exchanged research outcomes on accounting standards, and proactively carried out policy promotion in the accounting industry. This has promoted the enhancement of capacity building in accounting standards, facilitated the joint development of the accounting standards system, and effectively created a favorable accounting environment for economic and trade exchanges and capital flows among Belt and Road Initiative Partner Countries. He proposed that, in the face of new situations, new challenges, and new requirements, Forum participants should jointly strengthen the high-quality development and implementation of accounting standards to comprehensively improve the quality of accounting information; jointly advance the development of international and domestic sustainability disclosure standards and work together to build a new era of sustainable development; and jointly deepen mutually beneficial accounting cooperation with a wider scope, deeper level, and higher standard so as to join hands to write a new chapter of win-win development.

The delegates conducted situation briefings, experience sharing, opinion exchanges, and technical discussions on topics such as the implementation of accounting standards, materiality judgements, impact of ESG risks on traditional financial statements, the development of sustainability standards and information disclosure. They also discussed and consulted on future forum arrangements and mechanism construction.