Asian governments, regulators and companies have "taken their eye off the ball" over corporate governance during the current economic boom, a study released yesterday said.
The complacency at many levels of the region's financial system has made it vulnerable to any reversal of the strong stock market performance, the report by brokers CLSA and lobby group Asian Corporate Governance Association found.
Many of the region's firms have also avoided seriously grappling with the issue of climate change, often perceiving it as simply a problem for heavy polluters, the report said.
"There has been a palpable lessening of the pressure for [corporate governance] reform around the region ... and many governments, regulators and market participants have taken their eye off the governance ball," it said. "Indeed, certain regulators are positively complacent about what they have achieved in the past decade, recounting with pride how much their stock markets have risen, and saying that all they need do now is to refine their rules and improve implementation of best practices."
"This implies a degree of regulatory perfection that does not yet exist in any Asian market," it said.
The report studied 582 listed companies in 11 Asian markets and examined the governance performance based on discipline, transparency, independence, responsibility, accountability, fairness and environmental responsibility.
It found that the average corporate governance score for companies in Asia, not including Japan, only rose by 1.2 points, a much smaller increase than in previous years.
"There is less pressure on companies and countries for corporate governance when the economies of the region are strong and this is quite clear in the results of our survey," said Amar Gill from CLSA, the author of the report.
Companies have also refused to acknowledge their impact on climate change.
"It has not yet sunk in for most corporate managers in Asia that whatever business one is in, it will have a carbon footprint," the study said.
"Every business consumes electricity, involves travel and will have other impacts on the environment," it said.
"With a carbon footprint comes the responsibility to minimize, if not actually negate the cost of carbon emissions," it said.
Gill said that unless companies recognize their role in carbon emissions, they could be caught out by consumer activism in western countries placing pressure on companies they supply to conform to higher standards.
The report said large companies from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea were the most environmentally active, and singled out Korea's technology giant Samsung, global banking leader HSBC and Japan's NEC for special praise.
Hong Kong took the top spot in the regional ranking, taking over from Singapore. India was in third place followed by Taiwan and Japan.
The Philippines and Indonesia were ranked the lowest of the 11 countries assessed.
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS