These are big numbers very often and a potentially significant problem. Another is the figure at which assets are carried on the balance sheet. There could well be a large number of companies who are carrying assets at the wrong figures. We are also doing a standard on interim reporting, which is really a question of how you treat seasonality. Investors need to be told what is being done.
Mining is another area where there are some strange variations in practice.
In South Africa, mining companies don't use depreciation in the normal sense. When they develop a mine, they put the development cost on the balance sheet as the mine asset. They charge all subsequent expenditures against profit but they don't amortise the original asset. Perhaps that is not quite the right way to do it. A very crude question, and not one that just refers to emerging markets.