Asia woos back accountancy graduates with chartered qualification Malaysia is keen to woo back overseas accountancy graduates amid professional shortages. ASIA wants its overseas accountancy graduates to come home and has enlisted the UK'ASIAs Institute of Chartered Accountants and its charted accountancy qualification as a key lure. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has been in Australia this week with the world's biggest accountancy firms, trawling the current round of GRADUAN Malaysian graduate recruitment fairs here. The target is to woo back international students from Malaysia and other South East Asian countries once they have completed their undergraduate degrees here. Demand for accountants in Malaysia and the region is rising as economic growth increasingly outpaces the supply of qualified professionals. ICAEW and its partner, Malaysia's statutory recruiter TalentCorp are also looking to encourage Chinese students studying here, as well as Australian students, to consider working in Malaysia. To drum up interest they are promoting opportunities to study the ICAEW's international chartered accountants qualification for three years while working for Malaysian employers. ICAEW's South East Asia director, Mark Billington, said about a million Malaysian professionals were working overseas rather than in the country, and that the whole of South East Asia was experiencing shortages of professionals including accountants. "Everywhere I go in South East Asia people keep saying there aren't enough well qualified accountants," Mr Billington said. The ICAEW's chartered accountant qualification is open entry but about 90 per cent of students have a prior degree. Of these about half have a degree in accountancy, finance or business. About one-third of ICAEW's students are outside the UK.