On the 18th, Choi Un-yeol, president of The Korean Institute of Certified Public Accountants, emphasized that the Basic Accounting Act is not a simple enactment of law but will be an important starting point for providing useful information for national policy decision-making and for strengthening the transparency and reliability of accounting information.
Choi made these remarks at the 2025 Accounting Trend Symposium, held that day at the Westin Josun Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, under the theme of "The need to enact the Basic Accounting Act to enhance accounting transparency across society."
He noted that interest and efforts to enhance accounting transparency in the nonprofit institutional sector have been relatively lacking, adding that as a result, the driving force to strengthen accounting transparency across society has weakened and the 2025 international accounting transparency ranking has fallen again to the bottom.
Choi said that because laws related to accounting in the nonprofit institutional sector are dispersed across multiple government ministries, management blind spots are occurring, adding that in the case of private consignment, government ministries apply the Subsidy Act and undergo accounting audits, but local governments are subject to local government ordinance by jurisdiction, and only 40 out of 243 local governments undergo accounting audits, causing leakages in local government finance management.
He went on to argue that to correct this imbalance and strengthen international competitiveness, efforts on par with an accounting reform are needed, and that an institutional foundation is particularly necessary to apply consistent accounting policy to both the for-profit and nonprofit institutional sectors.
In addition, Choi said that The Korean Institute of Certified Public Accountants will do its utmost to strengthen the systematic overhaul and international credibility of Korea's accounting system in close cooperation with the government, academia, and industry, adding that he hopes this symposium will serve as an opportunity to take that first step together.