A Study On The Impairment Of Fixed Assets In Maritime Companies

On 15 February 2006, the Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China formally announced the issuance of the awaited Accounting Standard for Business Enterprises ("ASBE"), which consists of the Basic ASBE and 38 Specific ASBEs. The Impairment Standard is one of the ASBEs which have gone through a great change in order to improve the practice.Fixed assets, as is known to all, is the most important production factor in maritime companies. And the proportion of fixed assets to the total assets in maritime companies is comparatively much higher. Therefore, the correct and proper accounting information about fixed assets is of great importance to the disclosure of accounting information of maritime companies. Hence, based on the unique characteristics of maritime fixed assets and the influence of ASBE, especially Impairment Standard, the author points out the issues underlying the accounting practice with regard to impairment of maritime fixed assets and brings about how to deal with those issues.A detailed study is conducted based on the data collected from the accounting practice in maritime companies. This dissertation consists of six chapters.The first chapter displays the development in impairment of fixed assets, both at home and abroad and illustrates the research aim, content and methodologies of this dissertation. The second chapter focuses on the features of fixed assets in maritime industry, its current accounting practice and underlying issues it need to solve. The third chapter serves as a theoretical base for further study in which the relationship between impairment and depreciation of fixed assets is especially demonstrated. Besides theories and relative regulations and standards about asset unit and the reversal of impairment loss are discussed. The fourth and fifth chapters analyze issues in maritime companies concerning impairment of fixed assets, namely, the application of asset unit and the reversal of impairment loss, relied on the unique features of maritime industry and the newly-released accounting standards. Finally, the author concludes what she has studied and learned when writing this dissertation. Meanwhile, due to various conditional limitations, there are some drawbacks in this research. Though the dissertation comes to the end, the focus and researches in this field will never be hindered. In order to overcome the drawbacks and achieve more favorable results in this research, the author will learn more and move forward.