There are many accounting standards that become mandatorily effective for 2013 financial year. We have prepared a newsletter that contains a summary of accounting standards that are mandatorily effective for 2013 financial year. Application of many of these Standards requires significant judgement — how these new Standards are applied by entities for the first time would probably be the area of the regulatory focus when regulators review entities' financial statements. This newsletter also contains a number of examples on how we should apply the new Standards in practice.

This newsletter also highlights topical issues taking into account the current economic conditions (e.g. impairment). Impairment would continue to be an area of regulatory focus (in particular, the appropriateness of assumptions and inputs used in determining whether or not impairment is required and if so, the amount of impairment loss).

As you may be aware, new Companies Ordinance has been issued in Hong Kong that will come into operation on 3 March 2014 (Chapter 622 of the Laws of Hong Kong). The new Companies Ordinance will supersede most of the requirements set out in the existing Companies Ordinance (Cap. 32). This newsletter gives a summary of the new Companies Ordinance.

Specifically, this newsletter contains 4 sections, including:

• Section 1 — Accounting standards that are mandatorily effective for year ended 31 December 2013.
• Section 2 — Accounting standards that allow early application for the year ended 31 December 2013 (not mandatory).
• Section 3 — Topical issue: impairment and related issues.
• Section 4 — New Companies Ordinance.

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