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The Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants has graduated 2,141 students, the largest number in the Institute's history, surpassing last year's record of 1,888.

The 1,185 graduates from the December 2010 session and the 956 graduates from the June 2011 session can become certified public accountants after they complete their three-year work experience requirement.

"The quality and rigour of our qualification programme has earned members full recognition from not less than ten top accountancy designations around the world. Last month, we added the United States to the list," says Winnie C.W. Cheung, chief executive of the Institute.

"With our extensive reciprocity agreements with the world's best accountancy institutes, our members have global mobility for employment and practice in most major financial markets."

The Institute now has nearly 16,000 student. Since the institute introduced its CPA qualification programme more than a decade ago, 5,600 university graduate degree holders have come through the programme and qualified as CPAs. The programme has expanded into China, where more than 50 mainland CPAs have qualified with the Hong Kong designation.

"Professional accountants are important to a healthy and functioning economy. As QP is widely considered to be one of the world's top accounting training programmes, our candidates should see a wealth of opportunities in front of them. It's definitely an exciting time to be an accountant."

The Hong Kong Institute of CPAs has reciprocal membership agreements with the chartered accountants bodies in major financial centres, making its qualification one of the most internationally recognized and giving it members unprecedented mobility.

Those agreements are with the institutes of chartered accountants in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and South Africa.

In October, the Institute signed a mutual recognition agreement with the United States, the first Institute in Asia to achieve this. Under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, the Institute's qualification gets special treatment with four out of seven paper exemptions for Mainland China's qualification.

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