Key criteria for awards is transparency

The Annual Report Awards will reward those who provide transparent appraisals of their company

This year’s event was rolled out in Ho Chi Minh City last week, two months earlier than in previous years, so that the competitors could make better preparations for this year’s changes.

The theme “Corporate Governance towards Sustainable Development” intends to encourage listed firms to improve their business reports and the overall quality of published materials on corporate governance, no matter how they perform this management. As usual, norms, transparency, professionalism and creativity continue to be the major focus of the awards.

The competition is for all annual reports from enterprises listed on both the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) and Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX). To enter, the reports need to have been submitted to both of the country’s stock markets and cover the 2013 fiscal year.

This is the seventh year that the event has taken place with HoSE and VIR’s sister publication Dau tu Chung khoan (Securities Investment) as joint organisers and fund management company Dragon Capital as the sponsor.

At the press conference to launch the event, VIR’s Editor-in-chief Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan said the competition would see two new points.

Judging in the preliminary round will involve in-depth analysis on the contents of the reports. It will focus on corporate governance reporting, especially regarding community outreach and sustainable development.

Secondly, starting from 2014, preliminary round  marks will have a greater impact on the final results, with the new proportions being 20 per cent and 80 per cent, respectively.

The judging panel will consist of five members instead of a previous seven and include representatives of World Bank arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) who will continue their involvement.

This year will also see a new award for the best corporate governance reporting, in addition to the official Top 10, Top 30 and Top 50 awards. 

HoSE deputy CEO Tran Anh Dao said the organising committee expected the listed companies to pay more attention to corporate governance reporting so that they could build a firm foundation to deal with today’s economic uncertainties.

Regarding the Sustainability Reporting Awards (SRA) first introduced last year, this year’s programme continues to see the IFC and the UK-based Association of Chartered Certified Accountants’ (ACCA) participation. SRA aims at encouraging listed companies to publicise issues related to the environment and society, as well as to raise awareness over sustainable development.

 SRA also serves as preparatory ground for listed companies as Vietnam will soon introduce a law on sustainable development.

Nguyen Viet Thinh from PricewaterhouseCoopers, chief of the SRA judging team, said the assessment was based on how companies incorporate sustainable growth into their business strategy.

Pham Nguyen Vinh, business development director at Dragon Capital, the exclusive sponsor for the programme over the past six years, said “This year’s introduction of corporate governance awards is another milestone following last year’s introduction of the sustainability reporting awards.”

This year’s entries must be submitted to HoSE and HNX by April 21. The preliminary round will finish by May 30 and final round completed not later than June 20. The awards ceremony will be held in mid-July.