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Australia and New Zealand have adopted new financial reporting standards that complete a project to converge the two countries' accounting regimes.

The standard-setters said harmonisation would reduce compliance and accounting costs for companies that had operations in both countries.

Kevin Stevenson, the chairman of the Australian Accounting Standards Board, said the two countries' governments could now “remove the burdens associated with regulation affecting financial reporting by branches, subsidiaries and sub-consolidations.”

Joanna Perry, chairman of the New Zealand Financial Reporting Standards Board, added, “We now call on both Governments to make legislative changes to permit an entity to prepare a single financial report that is acceptable in both Australia and New Zealand.”

The prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand agreed to converge their accounting rules in 2009 as part of a plan to create a single market across the two nations.

The final standards are a set of amendments to the countries' existing accounting rules and disclosure requirements. Some of them take affect from July 2011, others from July 2013.