Ernst & Young to add China staff and office

By George Chen

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Global accounting firm Ernst & Young ERNY.UL 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.

Turley said the firm wants to hire people from universities and industry, adding that many Ernst & Young staff around the world are very interested in learning Chinese and want to work in China.

Meanwhile, China lacks professional accountants even as Beijing is encouraging Chinese companies to go public and improve their corporate governance, Turley said.

As a result, competition for accounting talent among the "Big Four" firms in China has becomes very fierce and many CEOs of foreign companies have complained it is difficult to find enough qualified financial experts when they expand their business in China.

Early this year, about 10 former China-based partners at PricewaterhouseCoopers PWC.UL (PwC) decided to join its rival, Ernst & Young, industry sources told Reuters.