Four indigenous certified public accountant (CPA) companies have seen their 2004 earnings break the record of 100 million yuan (about US$12.09 million), Wednesday's Economic Daily reports.

Citing a recent report from the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Beijing-based newspaper said that domestic CPA companies have picked up their pace amidst the competition with foreign peers.

The Shu Lun Pan Certified Public Accounts Co. Ltd, based in Shanghai, ranked first among all domestic players with earnings of 153.3 million yuan (about US$18.54 million).

The other three are the Beijing-based Shinewing, Accountant Final and Yuehua, whose 2004 earnings stood at 120.95 million yuan(14.63 million US dollars), 116.59 million yuan (14.1 million US dollars) and 100.96 million yuan (12.21 million US dollars), respectively.

Still, foreign heavyweights like PricewaterhouseCoopers, Kpmg Peat Marwick, Deloitte touche Tohmatsu and Ernst & Young, still have taken an absolute lead in the Chinese market.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, for instance, raked in 1.24677 billion yuan (about 150.76 million US dollars) in its 2004 earnings, the highest of all CPA companies operating in China, said the report.

Compared with last year, eight domestic CPA firms have seen rapid growth in their 2004 earnings and thus were listed among the country's top 100, said the report.

The aggregated earnings of China's top 100 CPA firms, either indigenous or foreign-invested, grew from 5.218 billion yuan in 2003, about 41 percent of the industry's total, to 7.1 billion yuan in 2004, which was nearly 46 percent of the industry's total. 

(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2005)