The 13th Assembly of the Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI) was held from 9 to 13 February in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. The prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, attended the opening ceremony and made a speech. The Deputy Auditor General of China National Audit Office (CNAO), Sun Baohou, led the Chinese delegation and on behalf of the Auditor General, Liu Jiayi, also made a speech at the opening ceremony. The Commissioner of Audit of Macau (CA), Ho Weng On, participated in the Assembly as a member of the Chinese delegation.

In his speech, Sun Baohou reviewed the development and achievements of ASOSAI through the past 35 years and praised the extensive cooperation and exchanges between ASOSAI and INTOSAI in fields like environmental auditing and development of professional standards. He pointed out that “The Beijing Declaration ─ Supreme Audit Institutions promoting good governance”, adopted at the Congress of INTOSAI held in 2013, clearly expressed the common goal of the supreme audit institutions (SAIs) in promoting and achieving global good governance. He said, respecting the conditions of each country and the specific characteristics of each SAI, INTOSAI is committed to the full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and supporting all SAIs to play an active role in the promotion of governance and accountability.

As delegate of CNAO, Ho Weng On participated in all events of the Assembly and took the opportunity to exchange views with the Deputy Auditor General of CNAO, Sun Baohou, the Assistant Director of Audit Commission of Hong Kong, Lau Sun Wo, and leaders of audit institutions of other participating countries. He referred that taking part in the Assembly of ASOSAI enabled him to be informed on the newest audit trends in other countries and also gave him an opportunity to present the development of government audit in Macau to other Asian counterparts and to discuss with them issues of common concern. Ho Weng On said that thanks to CNAO’s continuing support, CA has been able to develop computer aided audit, to participate in international events and to develop its personnel training programme. He referred that also CA would strive in accordance with the Beijing Declaration aiming to be more active and assertive in its role of overseer.

During the Assembly, the delegation of CNAO presented the Report on the 10th Research Project of ASOSAI, the Report on the ASOSAI Working Group on Environment Audit and the Report on the INTOSAI Professional Standards Committee, in which CNAO represents ASOSAI. The Assembly also deliberated on issues relating to the next chairmanship of ASOSAI, namely the election of the members of the Governing Board and the Audit Committee for 2015 2018 and the host SAI of the next ASOSAI Assembly. The 13th ASOSAI Assembly gathered a total of 179 participants from 38 members of ASOSAI as well as observers from INTOSAI, IDI, EUROSAI and AFROSAI.