An international team comprising experts from a broad range of ACIIA member societies met in Switzerland in mid-November for the third and final correction of the September 2004 CIIA examinations.

The examination papers had already undergone two independent corrections within each of the 17 countries participating in the examinations. The compulsory third check at the international level then monitors the quality and consistency of the corrections worldwide and enables a final assessment of all papers deemed critically close to the pass mark. Once the rigorous procedure was completed, the final statistics were passed on to the ACIIA International Examinations Committee and ACIIA council who approved the results, bringing the cumulative number of CIIA graduates to 2529.

In Mid-October, more than 350 participants from 15 countries converged upon Tokyo for the annual conferences of the Asian Federation of Financial Analysts (ASAF) and the Security Analysts Association of Japan (SAAJ). Jean-Francois Balmary, Deputy Chairman of ACIIA and special guest at the event, took the opportunity to further strengthen the ties between the European and Asian members of the ACIIA and confer with the ACIIA Chairman, Kiyoto Hagiwara.

The conferences offered intensive general sessions on the key theme "Asian Economics and Financial Markets - Independence and Interdependence" and panel discussions by distinguished speakers on the Japanese equities market and business strategy of Japanese companies operating in Asia. Thanks to the hosts, SAAJ, interesting field trips to cultural and technological highlights of Tokyo were arranged, and a gala dinner offered all participants the opportunity to catch up with colleagues from around the world.

The keynote speeches of the ASAF Conference "Prospects for Economic Growth in Asia" by Eisuke Sakakibara, Professor, Keio University; and "Financial Reform in China" Liu Hong-Ru, Professor, Peking University/Tsinghua University; will be published in the next issue of the ASAF E-journal (http://www.asaf.org.au/) at the end of 2004. The 2005 ASAF Annual conference will take place on the 27-28 October 2005 in Beijing.