The Development of Accounting Regulation in the Libyan Region Countries in Africa

Abstract

This paper has identified the impact of Libya’s unique accounting regulation, economic, political, religious, social and cultural systems on the development of its accounting profession in this country, and, by extension, on the way accounting is practiced. In order to have a better understanding of Libyan’s present accounting practices, and its future development tendencies, we examine the path of transition in Libya from a planned economy to a market economy since the early days of the 20^th century, which has resulted in fundamental changes such as the restructuring of state-owed enterprises, a noticeable growth in foreign direct investment, and an emerging private sector. These changes put immediate pressure on accounting practice to change to meet the demands of the new business environment. The examination, investigation and analysis have illuminated a number of important factors that have affected the development of regulation in Libya. We also examine Libyan’s using IAS/IFRS advantage is as a global comparability of financial report. The standard adjust/change from national GAAP to support IAS/IFRS implementation will have impact to the Libyan accounting environment due to the different principles used to report the corporation financial activity framework.The findings indicate that Libyan companies have experienced pressure from business environmental factors, such as new state disclosure regulations, competition, deterioration of financial performance and the need for more accounting practices. Our conclusions could be of interest to other countries, particularly developing or emerging economy, who want to improve the high-quality of their accounting regulation and practices for decision making.

Keywords: Accounting regulation; Accounting practices; Auditing; IAS/IFRS; Libya