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.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
PRECEDENTED TIMES: In news that surely does not shock, AI and tech exports drove a banner for exports last year as Taiwan’s economic growth experienced a flood tide Taiwan’s exports delivered a blockbuster finish to last year with last month’s shipments rising at the second-highest pace on record as demand for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and advanced computing remained strong, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Exports surged 43.4 percent from a year earlier to US$62.48 billion last month, extending growth to 26 consecutive months. Imports climbed 14.9 percent to US$43.04 billion, the second-highest monthly level historically, resulting in a trade surplus of US$19.43 billion — more than double that of the year before. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) described the performance as “surprisingly outstanding,” forecasting export growth
RSS