The 17th INCOSAI held at Seoul in October 2001 marked a very important event in the calendar of activities of the public audit fraternity. Two important outcomes of this Congress deserve particular mention. The first is the "Seoul Accord" which was arrived at on the basis of consensus from all participating member SAIs. The second is that ASOSAI got increased representation on the INTOSAI Governing Board by means of an additional seat. The efficiency and hospitality that marked the manner in which the host (SAI-Korea) organized the event were of equal significance. It is a matter of particular pride that the Board of Audit and Inspection, Korea (which is one of the founder members of ASOSAI) hosted this important international event.
The months of September and October also saw the organization of two important and successful sponsored workshops in Bangladesh and Australia. The topics of the workshop were "Financial Audit" and "Value for Money Audit" respectively. The ASOSAI community is grateful to the SAIs of Australia and Bangladesh for hosting these workshops. 38 participants from ASOSAI member countries enriched their skills in these two participatory workshops. The ASOSAI sponsored workshop held in March this year at New Delhi on "Introduction to IT Audit" was yet another milestone in imparting public audit training in this region.
One event that merits particular mention is the agreement signed by ASOSAI with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to augment the pool of training specialists within ASOSAI. The agreement is a very significant event for ASOSAI and will go a long way in improving the training capacities of Member SAIs.
We have attempted to make this edition of the ASOSAI Journal as reader friendly as we could. We welcome feedback from the readers, to help us make further improvements. I once again welcome all the readers in the region to send us material that they find relevant for the Journal.