CG Watch 2018: Hard Decisions

This external report is the ninth edition of CG watch, one of the most comprehensive regional reports on corporate governance in Asia-Pacific published every 2 years by the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) and CLSA Limited, a capital markets and investment group.

This report found that Malaysia was the biggest gainer overall, reflecting concrete steps taken to tackle corruption. Among the 12 countries surveyed, Malaysia was ranked 4th place after Australia (1), Hong Kong (2) and Singapore (3), ahead of Taiwan (5), Thailand (6), India (7) and Japan (7). The key theme of corporate governance reform for Malaysia, highlighted by the report, was whether the new government is able to tackle corruption and cronyism. Overall, the best performing category was ‘Auditors & Audit Regulators’, while the worst performing is ‘Investors’. It also found that markets also tend to do well in ‘CG Rules’, while underperforming in ‘Government & Public Governance’, and that ‘Regulatory Enforcement’ is also improving. The report findings are based on two distinct surveys: a market-ranking survey carried out independently by ACGA on macro CG quality in 12 markets in Asia-Pacific, and a separate company survey conducted by analysts around the region on corporate governance practices among 1,100 firms listed in Asia-Pacific.