Sharp increase in quality and quantity at ARA 2016

The 9th Annual Report Awards (ARA), co-organised by the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) and VIR, have attracted a total of 592 reports from listed Vietnamese companies. The judging panel finished selecting 136 finalists in late June and will reveal the winners on July 29.

Judges for this year’s ARA come from HOSE, the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the State Securities Commission, the Vietnam Association of Accountants and Auditors, the Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics, International Finance Corporation (IFC), and VIR. Experts from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and IFC also evaluated reports for the Sustainability Report Awards (SRA).

Ngo Viet Hoang Giao, HOSE’s deputy CEO and head of the judging panel, noted that the overall quality of financial reports were much better this year. Besides having more detailed content, the reports also improved in presentation and structure.

“Firms like Ho Chi Minh Securities Corporation or The PAN Group have dedicated a large part of their reports to corporate social responsibility. This is laudable and I hope many more contestants will follow this trend in the upcoming years,” said Giao, adding that Century Synthetic Fibre Corporation and TNG Investment & Trading JSC particularly impressed the judges with their remarkable progress in reporting.

Regarding the SRA, judges revealed that a staggering number of 77 reports entered the final round and eight sustainability reports were separated from the main annual report. Due to the unexpected amount of quality reports in sustainability, the judging panel had to add another round, selecting the 26 best reports.

“For this year’s SRA, we want to emphasise content and credibility, therefore presentation accounts for fewer marks. We are very happy to see a greater number of IFC and G4 Sustainability Reporting Standards. Some reports are also accessible via smartphone apps, which is fantastic,” said To Vi Hung, head of the SRA judging panel.

According to Hung, the sustainability report of Bao Viet Holdings stood out the most as it was the only one to have been verified by independent auditors. From this example, Hung advised that in the future, contestants should specify which sustainability standards they are following and hire external auditors to increase the report’s credibility.

Meanwhile, Professor Tran Ngoc Tho, another member of the ARA judging panel, was more critical in his assessment. He acknowledged an increase in the reports’ quality, but thought companies should use more in-depth statistics and quantitative methods to back up their reports.

“Some firms still make perfunctory reports to comply with listing standards. This thinking is detrimental to the market, as investors rely heavily on financial reports to make their decisions, and reports can be a powerful promotional tool for firms. I want to see a drastic shift regarding this issue in the coming years,” said Tho.

The professor specified that firms should elaborate on the risk management section and measure themselves against competitors. Overall, any claim or business goal made in the report must be supported by relevant research and data.

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