Faculty of Accountancy and Management (FAM) academics Assoc Prof David Ng Ching Yat and Specialist I S. Shubatra received the "Best Presenter Award" for their papers titled "Investing in Real Estate Investments Trusts (REITs) Provides Performance and Risk Diversification Benefits: A Malaysia And Japan Analysis" and “Digital Taxation Among Asia-Pacific Countries: Its Issues and Recommendations" respectively at the 3rd Advances in Business Research International Conference (ABRIC 2020/21) on 26 and 27 January 2021.

“Our study aims to analyse if Malaysian real estate investment trusts (REITs) have better risk diversification benefits compared to Japanese REITs. The other objective was to determine the performance level, whether Malaysian REITs performed better compared to Japanese REITs,” elucidated Assoc Prof David Ng when asked about the objective of the study.

He added, “This recognition is important as it provides me with the impetus to continue presenting at international conferences.  It is an uplifting feeling that I’ve presented well, organisers are recognising this and the participants could understand my presentation. Although the preparation for the presentation slides and recording the presentation video was an arduous task, getting this recognition has made it worthwhile. I would like to thank my fellow researchers for their contribution and to FAM for the opportunity.”

S. Shubatra explained, “The objective of this study was to investigate tax problems posed by e-commerce on the taxation systems among the Asia Pacific countries as well as to determine the extent of a server can constitute a permanent establishment and to examine if the local laws and guidelines are sufficient to curb tax evasion and understatement of tax revenue.”

“Being fairly new at presenting in conferences, this award has boosted my confidence and given me the encouragement to further my efforts to present in future conferences. As a newcomer in the field of publication, this has given me the confidence to do more publication and this is in line with the UTAR's objective too.  Since digital tax is a grey area where most countries are still in the process of formulating it as a system, getting the information on digital tax was an enormous task. But the preparation for this paper has exposed me to an in-depth knowledge of digital tax. Achieving this award has made it worth the efforts. Thanks to my co-authors Assoc Prof David Ng and K. Mahendra as well as FAM for the encouragement and support,” added S. Shubatra.
        
The ABRIC 2020/21 aims to provide an avenue for postgraduate students, academicians and practitioners locally and abroad to present their research papers and have exchange of ideas in the areas of the digital economy. Aside from furthering the understanding of how the issues associated with business digital innovation in the Fourth Industry Revolution should be addressed and dealt with, ABRIC 2020/21 targets to bridge the gap between academia and the industry through sharing of knowledge and experiences from international and local speakers in the area of Social Science and, Science and Technology.