6.conclusions
The extent of disclosure harmonization is found to by different for the 13 standards examined. Tables II-XIV reveal that the I indices for disclosure harmonization vary from 0.6099 (60.99 Percent) for taxes on income to 0.9365 (93.65 percent) for inventories. Table XIV shows the moderate level of disclosure harmonization in most of the standards except for inventories, cash flow statement and consolidated financial statement. The potential reason for the moderate level of harmonization may by that companies are reluctant to comply with accounting standards. This is because enforcement of accounting standards may not be very rigorous in the South Asian region. There are no many examples of prosecution against auditors or companies for not complying with accounting standards. Compliance with IFRS may lead to harmonization of accounting disclosure practices. Hope (2003) argued that if accounting standards are not complied will they will be of little value. The Companies Ordinance (1984) of Pakistan requires companies to prepare financial statements in accordance with the international accounting standards. Like Pakistan, regulators and standard setters in India and Bangladesh need to pass similar legislation so that companies are obliged to follow IFRS issued by the IASB. Since the member countries of the SAFA have adopted IFRS as the basis of national standards, indicating achieving international harmonization rather regional harmonization is one of the major objectives of the SAFA. National standard setter and regulators as the IASB and the SAFA should work together in order to comparability of financial statements in the region.