Ernst & Young to Expand China Staff and Offices

Global accounting firm Ernst & Young said on Tuesday it plans a nearly four-fold jump in its China staff in the next decade, to about 30,000 from 8,000 now, as it courts Chinese clients eager to expand outside the world's fastest growing major economy.

The firm, one of the world's "Big Four" auditing firms, also plans to open two to three new branches annually over the next few years, focusing expansion in western China to support Beijing's "Go West" economic policy, its visiting chief executive, James Turley, said in Shanghai, China's financial hub.

"This is all people business and the biggest risk for us is if we don't get the right kind of people for our company," he said during the Reuters China Century Summit.

"We need to have a firm in China in the next foreseeable future, you know, 10-plus years, and we are not talking about 8,000 or 9,000, we are talking about 25,000, 28,000 or even 30,000 staff in China," he said.

London-based Ernst & Young last year became the official auditor for the listing of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), which was the world's biggest initial public offering of shares in 2006.

Besides ICBC, China's top bank by assets, many Chinese clients of Ernst & Young are big state-owned enterprises such as China Mobile, the country's biggest mobile operator which bought control of Paktel Ltd., Pakistan's oldest cellphone carrier early this year.

"China is always the destination for foreign investments, and now we are seeing much more interest in Chinese firms looking abroad," said Turley, who joined the company in 1977 after graduating from university.

"Now, the Chinese companies know they can compete in the global stage," he said, adding that such moves will create many business opportunities for Ernst & Young in the near future.

Ernst & Young, which operates 10 offices across China currently, took over a local accounting firm in 2001, making it the first foreign player in the industry to make such an acquisition in China.