The Chinese Ministry of Finance (MoF) has
approved KPMG China’s plans to restructure from a joint venture to
special general partnership in line with the governments rules
revealed in May.
KPMG China will be the first Big Four firm to
undergo the transition.
The MoF said KPMG’s firm formed through the
partnership will have CNY10m ($1.57m) in registered capital and the
joint venture KPMG set up in 1992 should now cancel its
registration.
In May, the MoF issued a raft of new
localisation rules that means from August China’s accounting
firms must now be led by local citizens and ensure
the number of foreign partners does not exceed 40%.
The rules are designed to place control of
large firms into the hands of the Chinese and ensure voting
rights are dominated by Chinese-qualified CPAs.
The rules also require accounting firms to
have no more than 20% of partners qualified outside of China by
2017 while partners have to be at least 40 years old and but not
older than 65.
