At its 76th meeting held on 12th January 2013 at Dhaka, Bangladesh, SAFA Assembly ratified the appointment of Mr. Abdul Mannan, FCMA, and Mr. Subodh Kumar Agrawal, FCA as the President and Vice-President respectively of South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA) for the year 2013. The new Office Bearers have assumed the office w.e.f. 1st January 2013.

Mr. Abdul Mannan, FCMA born in Dhaka in 1942, is a former Member of Parliament of Bangladesh for 4 consecutive terms. He is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh (ICMAB). He is also a Fellow member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants of UK. He is an elected Council member of ICMAB. Mr. Mannan holds distinguished and illustrious career in the management of large private and public corporate bodies. He rendered his prudent leadership to a number of leading private corporate business enterprises. Currently, he is the Chairman of Bengal Airlift Ltd. and Bengal Information Technologies Ltd., Managing Director of Dhaka Export Ltd. and A.R. Chowdhury Securities Ltd. and Director of (a) Freight Express Ltd. (FEL), (b) Air Alliance Ltd., (c) Bengal Knittex Ltd and (d) ACE Cargo Bangladesh Ltd. He was the Hon'ble State Minister for Civil Aviation & Tourism and Textiles, Government of Bangladesh. He was the Former Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee, Ministry of Agriculture. He was also the Managing Director & CEO of Biman Bangladesh Airlines and thus first Chief Executive of a public sector corporation in Bangladesh from accounting profession. He has lot of publications to his credit and contributed a number of technical papers in the National and International Conferences, Seminars and Workshops and chaired many technical sessions.

Mr Subodh Kumar Agrawal, Vice-President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India has been appointed as Vice President of SAFA for the year 2013. Hailing from Kolkata, India, he has specialisation in the area of Internal and Statutory Audit of Private and Public Sector Entities. Having passionately represented Indian accountancy profession on the international front, he has been nominated on the ‘Small & Medium Practices Committee of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). He is also Technical Advisor to ICAI representative on International Accountancy Education Standards Board (IAESB) of IFAC. Besides, he is also a member of Committee on Professional Ethics and Independence of SAFA. He was also a member of various Committees of SAFA, including Committee for Improvement in Transparency, Accountability and Governance, Committee on Professional Accountants in Business and Committee on Quality Control. He also represents ICAI in the ‘Standing Committee on Accounting Issues’ constituted by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority and in the ‘Committee to review SIDBI’s lending to MSME Sector.’ He is also an Independent Director in ‘M/s Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd’. Known for his hard work and selfless service to the accountancy profession, Mr. Subodh Kumar Agrawal is also a prolific speaker and has addressed various seminars and conferences on various issues of professional interest.

Backgrounder
South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA), an Apex Body of SAARC is a forum of professional accountancy bodies in the SAARC Region and is committed to positioning, maintaining and developing the profession in its member countries and ensuring its continued eminence in the world of accountancy; in the public interest and towards broad economic development of the region. SAFA was formed in the year 1984 and has at present the membership of ten accounting institutions in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives. . SAFA has also been recognized as an Acknowledged Accounting Grouping by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC).