Kolkata: The Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C) and audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have tied up to train professionals in International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), according to a top IIM-C official.

The two organisations inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Tuesday to provide this training to address the existing demand-supply gap in the country for IFRS-trained professionals.

"IIM-C will now run a specially designed executive programme on IFRS jointly with PwC in order to update working finance and accounts executives with IFRS, so that they can also be employed by global players," Saibal Chattopadhyay, dean, IIM-C said at a programme in the campus here on Tuesday.

The training would be divided into two parts - basic and advanced module.

The course module has been jointly developed by IIM-C and PwC and will be taught jointly by "our own faculty and by finance experts from PwC", Chattopadhyay said.

"Going further, training will be extended to professionals across the country through the distance learning delivery of training, which will be satellite based. The attendees would receive a participation certificate on successful completion of the programme," said Ashok Banerjee of IIM-C.

At present, training will be imparted only at the campus.

The training is scheduled to be rolled out from November.

Convergence with IFRS has gained momentum in recent years all over the world. More than 100 countries currently require or permit the use of or have a policy of convergence with IFRS.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has announced that IFRSs should be adopted for all public interest entities like listed entities, banks and insurance entities and large-sized entities from the accounting periods beginning on or after April 1, 2011.

Last week, IIM-C joined hands with ICICI Prudential Life Insurance to start a new course focussing on the insurance sector. IANS