Annual Report Awards celebrates immense improvements

The winners are the best reports out of the 136 finalists who have been selected from 600 listed companies on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) and the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX). In the winners’ list, 34 reports belong to firms listed on the HOSE and 16 on the HNX.

The awards are classified into three categories, including Top 10 (the 10 reports with the highest scores), Top 30 (the next 20 reports), and Top 50 (the remaining 20 reports in the Top 50 list). From the winners, the Selection Board will also choose a report with excellent content and presentation for the Outstanding Award.

The three companies with the most drastically improved reports will also receive the Outstanding Improvements Award.

In addition, the Selection Board will pick the three best contents on corporate governance, including one First Prize, one Second Prize, and one Third Prize.

Meanwhile, the Sustainability Reporting Awards will be handed out to five firms, including a First and Second Prize and three Consolation Prizes in three categories: completeness, reliability, and presentation. The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Britain-based global Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) have joined the Selection Board for this award, selecting five winners out of 420 reports that included sustainable development issues.

Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung noted that the Annual Report Awards (ARA) provided the market with an independent and objective assessment of firms’ annual reports. More transparent annual reports will help improve the Vietnamese market and attract long-term large investment flows.

Meanwhile, Ngo Viet Hoang Giao, board member and deputy CEO of HOSE, head of the Organising Committee and the Selection Board, highlighted the tremendous quantitative increase of reports with a sustainability dimension.

The standards of corporate governance reporting have improved this year, as 105 out of 136 finalists (77 per cent) earned at least average marks. The figure was 60 per cent in 2015 and only 40 per cent in 2014.

This improvement was applauded by Pham Nguyen Vinh, business development director and head of Responsible Investing at Dragon Capital. He noted that global investors are now unlikely to pour capital into firms that profess to low standards of corporate governance, social responsibility, and environmental awareness.

“Improvements in annual reports have shown firms’ determination to open themselves to investors. As a result, everyone’s efforts to create the best report in their ability should be celebrated,” said Le Trong Minh, VIR’s editor-in-chief and co-head of the Organising Committee.

ARA have been co-organised by HOSE and VIR since 2008. The awards are sponsored solely by Dragon Capital and received support from the State Securities Commission, HNX, IFC, and ACCA, to boost the transparency of the Vietnamese market.

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