FINANCIAL AND MONETARY AFFAIRS
to creditors. The Official Receiver also prosecutes certain offences set out in the Bankruptcy and Companies Ordinances, applies for disqualification of unfit company directors, supervises the work of outside liquidators and trustees, and monitors the funds held by liquidators in compulsory and voluntary liquidations.
In order to alleviate the huge increase in workload of the Official Receiver, a scheme had been established to contract out the summary winding-up cases to the insolvency practitioners in the private sector. Under the scheme, these insolvency practitioners' remuneration would be subsidised by the government funds up to a prescribed limit.
During the year, the court made 3 071 bankruptcy orders, four interim orders. regarding individual voluntary arrangements and 795 winding-up orders. The assets realised by the Official Receiver during 1999 amounted to $54.88 million, while $52.09 million in dividends was paid to creditors in 183 insolvency cases. There were 400 cases assigned under the scheme for contracting out summary winding-up cases.
Professional Accountancy
Hong Kong had 16 163 registered professional accountants at the end of 1999. Of these, 2 709 were certified public accountants (CPAs) or public accountants (PAs) who are in public practice and entitled to perform statutory audits. There were 986 CPA firms and 51 corporate practices in the SAR at the end of the year.
The Hong Kong Society of Accountants is a self-regulatory body established under the Professional Accountants Ordinance with a wide range of responsibilities for registering professional accountants, maintaining accounting, auditing and ethical standards for the profession and conducting training programes and examinations to qualify professional accountants.
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