STRASBOURG, France, April 22 (Reuters) - U.S. and Japanese firms with a stock market listing in the European Union can continue filing accounts under home rules and thereby avoid costly changes, the European Commission decided on Tuesday.

The move is aimed at helping the EU bourses such as London Stock Exchange (LSE.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) compete better with U.S. rivals.

The European Union executive body said U.S. and Japanese accounting rules known as GAAP, can be considered equivalent to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) used by the EU's 8,000 listed companies.
Firms from those two countries listed in the EU won't have to file a separate set of accounts using IFRS rules, a costly exercise known as reconciliation.

Chinese companies will also be allowed to continue filing accounts using their home accounting standards but there will be a review of how this works in practice.

The Committee of European Securities Regulators, made up of securities watchdogs from the 27 EU states, advised the Commission last month to delay deciding on whether Chinese accounting rules were equivalent to IFRS.

CESR said there should be more information on the application of the new Chinese accounting standards by Chinese issuers first.

The European Commission said that firms from Canada and South Korea should also be allowed to file statements until 2011 using their own accounting rules and the executive will make formal proposals to this effect.

By 2011 Canada and South Korea will have made progress in aligning their accounting rules with IFRS which is already used in over 100 countries and is becoming the global standard.