On 7 May 2008, Gerrit Zalm, Chairman of the Trustees, gave the following speech at XBRL International's 17th Conference in Eindhoven, The Netherlands:

It is an honour to be invited to speak today at XBRL International’s 17th Conference.

I can only assume that XBRL International extended this invitation after learning that I had read the recently published XBRL for Dummies.

Indeed, I found that publication very useful, and a good deal of my knowledge on the technical aspects of XBRL is derived from that book. For that reason, I hope that you will excuse me if I avoid going into much detail regarding the technicalities of the IFRS taxonomy!

I congratulate XBRL International for choosing Eindhoven as the venue for this important event.

In my previous capacity as Finance Minister of the Netherlands, I saw the significant potential benefits that XBRL could provide in both the public and private sectors. The Ministries of Justice and Finance jointly established the Dutch Taxonomy Project, to cut the administrative burden placed on business.

Our view was that by using XBRL it will be possible to collect, record, and exchange financial reports more quickly, more efficiently and more easily. At the same time, we could reduce the possibility for human error by recording data only once.

XBRL is rapidly becoming an integral part of the world’s business reporting framework. This development in a very short period of time is a testament to the hard work of all of those involved with XBRL International—in most cases, volunteers who had a vision of the benefits of the convergence of technology and business reporting.

I am delighted to be sharing the stage today with Christopher Cox, Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who deserves special credit for advancing the cause of XBRL and interactive data. The SEC has made an extraordinary commitment to establishing XBRL as the norm for financial reporting, and the rest of the world has noticed. Having the United States taking a leadership role will encourage other countries to follow and raises the possibility of improved usability and comparability of financial data across borders.

I am also pleased with the support of the European Commission for XBRL-related activities. The European Commission provided important seed money, five years ago, which helped to promote XBRL in Europe.

IFRSs and XBRL

We at the IASC Foundation are proud of our long association with XBRL International and other regional and national XBRL efforts throughout world.

The Trustees, whom I chair, believe that the development of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) and the availability of a high quality IFRS taxonomy, based on XBRL standards, go hand in hand.

The objective of the IASC Foundation is simple.

IFRSs should become the universally accepted set of accounting standards. It is the view of the IASB and the Trustees that these standards should provide transparency, comparability and consistency of financial reporting across companies and borders. This will enable investors to allocate capital efficiently and allow supervision by regulatory authorities to be conducted more efficiently and effectively. These standards should be based on clearly articulated principles, enabling financial reporting practitioners to utilise their judgement and making financial statements more accessible to users.

The progress towards IFRS adoption throughout the world has been steady. More than 100 countries have agreed to require or permit the use of IFRSs, or have established time lines towards the adoption of IFRSs. I have been struck by the speed of change. In the last year, Brazil, Canada and China have all committed themselves to formal time lines to adopt IFRSs, and Japan established 2011 as its target for convergence with IFRSs.

For a relative newcomer to the world of standard-setting, what has been equally encouraging—and even surprising—has been the openness of attitude of the United States towards IFRSs. Again Christopher Cox and his fellow commissioners deserve a great deal of credit for their leadership on IFRSs.

In November 2007 the SEC agreed to eliminate the reconciliation requirement, with immediate effect, for those non-US companies using IFRSs as issued by the IASB. At the same time, the SEC is giving serious consideration to a proposal to permit US companies to use IFRSs. The SEC is still in the process of considering this proposal, but I believe that it is reasonable to expect that US companies will be permitted to use IFRSs in the near future.

Benefits

The rationale behind the march to IFRSs is evident. For companies operating in multiple countries, the acceptance of international standards will cut the cost of complying with various national regimes.

A common financial language, applied consistently, will enable investors to compare the financial results of companies operating in different jurisdictions more easily and provide more opportunity for investment and diversification.

For auditors, a single set of accounting standards should enable international audit firms to standardise training and better assure the quality of their work on a global basis.

An international approach for accounting should also permit international capital to flow more freely, enabling audit firms and their clients to develop consistent global practice to accounting problems and thus further enhancing consistency.

Finally, for regulators, the confusion associated with needing to understand various reporting regimes would be reduced.

It is not surprising that many of these benefits can be applied to the implementation of XBRL as well. It is for this reason that the Trustees have had no hesitation in supporting the development of an IFRS taxonomy at the IASC Foundation.

We believe that the provision of a taxonomy based on IFRSs will encourage adoption of IFRSs throughout the world and only enhance the benefits already being achieved through the adoption of IFRSs. Because we at the IASC Foundation, through the International Accounting Standards Board, develop IFRSs, we are uniquely positioned to develop a high quality taxonomy that is freely available in order to ensure consistency of use.

The Trustees have increased their oversight of the IASC Foundation’s XBRL work, and I will speak about our commitments in a minute. However, in many ways, it was not the Trustees, but the staff at the IASC Foundation who saw the potential synergies between the development of IFRSs and XBRL early on.

Kurt Ramin and Josef Macdonald established the XBRL programme at the IASC Foundation, when few standard-setters knew or understood the benefits of XBRL. Today, Olivier Servais and his dedicated team of professional staff and interns have made great advances in enhancing the quality and usability of our taxonomy.

The IASC Foundation’s commitment to XBRL is clear:

We will continue to provide, free of cost to users, an XBRL taxonomy based upon the IFRS bound volume of standards in a timeframe consistent with the bound volume’s publication.

We will help to ensure the quality of our taxonomy by providing additional staff resources, where appropriate, and by utilising the recently created XBRL Quality Review Team and XBRL Advisory Council.

We will work with any regulatory authority that wishes to use the IFRS taxonomy. For example, we are co-operating with the European Commission and other EU authorities, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors, the Committee of European Securities Regulators, the Central Banks of Belgium and Spain, and regulatory authorities in Australia, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States, among others.

While maintaining our position that the IFRS taxonomy should be freely available, we will use our intellectual property rights to help ensure the consistency of implementation of the IFRS taxonomy throughout the world.

As many of you know, the IASC Foundation XBRL team has published a draft 2008 IFRS taxonomy for comment, and we are confident that a final version that takes into account the input of a wide range of parties will be ready for use shortly.

Overcoming the challenges ahead

The progress made both in terms of IFRS and XBRL are encouraging. When I joined the Trustees, I characterised the IASC Foundation’s work as a romantic project. Although accounting is not frequently associated with romantic thoughts, I can think of no other international body that has come so far in setting a global standard. It is possible that the work of XBRL International should be added to the list.

Our ultimate success is not guaranteed, however. Both organisations are addressing important issues of governance, which will be essential to ensure consistent application of our standards. I welcome the efforts that are already under way at XBRL International to create an independent board of directors.

At the IASC Foundation, the Trustees have recognised, and continue to recognise, the need to demonstrate the organisation’s public accountability. We are a unique organisation, and I understand why many in Europe and elsewhere find it unusual that a body overseen by a self-appointed group of Trustees, but not formally reporting to any public authority, is de facto setting law in Europe and elsewhere.

We are in the process of addressing that issue by establishing a relationship with a Monitoring Group to end the practice of self-appointment and to create a formal link to public authorities. The Monitoring Group would have a monitoring function to ensure that the Trustees are fulfilling their constitutional obligations and that the selection of Trustees is conducted in an appropriate and transparent manner. The Monitoring Group would be responsible for approving the selection of Trustees after an agreed nominations process administered by the IASC Foundation.

Our aim is to finalise the creation of such a link between the Trustees and the Monitoring Group at our October 2008 meeting in Beijing with the aim of implementation in January 2009. Over the coming weeks, we will continue our discussions on this issue with public authorities and private sector stakeholders before publishing our proposed constitutional amendments in early June. We would encourage any interested party to participate in our consultation process.

We are at an important stage of the development of IFRSs. We expect nearly 150 countries to adopt IFRSs by 2011. By that time, the IASB’s convergence programme with the United States should be nearly complete, and we are waiting for the SEC to determine whether US companies will have the option to use IFRSs and whether a firm deadline for US adoption will be set.

I joined the Trustees because of my belief that we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a set of accounting standards appropriate for the world’s capital markets. By addressing issues of governance, by encouraging the IASB’s efforts and overseeing their work, and by devoting the necessary resources to our IFRS taxonomy, the Trustees are committed to the task.

I wish you a successful conference and thank you again for listening.

About the Trustees

Gerrit Zalm is a former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the Netherlands. Having served under four governments from 1994 to 2007, he is the longest serving Minister of Finance in the history of his country.

Beginning in 1975 and before becoming Minister of Finance in 1994, Mr Zalm held a number of high level positions in the Dutch Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economic Affairs.

In 1981 he was appointed the Deputy Director for Budgetary Affairs and Head of the Budget Preparation Division.

In 1983 Mr Zalm was appointed Deputy Director for General Economic Policy at the Ministry for Economic Affairs, becoming head of that directorate in 1985.

He then joined the Central Planning Bureau in 1988, first as a Deputy Managing Director and from 1989 as Managing Director. He also served as part-time Professor in Economics at Amsterdam Free University (discipline Economic Policy) from 1990.

Since leaving the Dutch Government in February 2007, Mr Zalm has taken a number of advisory positions for private organisations. He is currently Chief Economist for DSB Bank; a consultant to PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Netherlands;  an adviser to Permira, a private equity fund and Chairman of the Advisory Council of We go 4 it, a co-operative effort among the social assistance organisations of the four largest cities of the Netherlands.