The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan held a high-level follow-up consultation on reforming Pakistan’s cost audit regime, building on its January 2025 consultation paper reviewing the utility and effectiveness of the existing framework. Feedback from earlier stakeholder sessions and responses indicated that the regime is widely viewed as compliance-heavy with limited practical or economic utility. The October 27, 2025 meeting in Islamabad, chaired by the SECP Chairperson and attended by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP), the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan (ICMAP), the Ministry of Industries and Production, the Competition Commission of Pakistan and industry stakeholders, focused on aligning the regime with international standards and improving its relevance to regulatory and policy objectives. The agreed review will cover the formats of cost accounting statements to be annexed to audited financial statements, the scope of the audit of those annexed statements, and the mechanism for filing them with sectoral regulators, with an aim to avoid duplicative reporting while maintaining transparency and accountability. ICAP and ICMAP will jointly undertake the review and submit detailed recommendations to the SECP within three weeks, consulting further stakeholders where necessary.
Securites & Exchange Commission of Pakistan 2025-10-29
Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan commissions ICAP and ICMAP to propose reforms to the cost audit regime
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan held a follow-up consultation on reforming the cost audit regime, emphasizing its compliance-heavy nature with limited utility. The meeting aimed to align the regime with international standards, focusing on cost accounting statement formats, audit scope, and filing mechanisms. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan and the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan will jointly review and submit recommendations to the SECP.