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uab Tops the 2020 Pwint Thit Sa / Transparency In Myanmar Enterprises Ranking
Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB) and Yever today launched the sixth Pwint Thit Sa/Transparency in Myanmar Enterprises (TiME) report.
The 2020 report assesses online disclosure on the corporate websites of 260 Myanmar companies, including listed, public, private companies and State-Owned Economic Enterprises (SEEs). The assessment also includes all banks, to reflect the higher standard of corporate governance required of banks in Myanmar. This makes it the most ambitious public report ever published about the state of corporate disclosure (CD) in Myanmar.
In 2020, the three Myanmar companies which score highest are uab bank, City Mart Holdings Group (CMHL), and Shwe Taung Group. While these companies have consistently featured in the Top 10 of previous Pwint Thit Sa reports, Pwint Thit Sa 2020, like in Pwint Thit Sa 2019 shows that all of them continue to improve their disclosure on an annual basis. Other companies scoring highly are Yoma Bank, First Myanmar Investment Public (FMI), Max Myanmar Group, Kanbawza Bank (KBZ), Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings, TMH Telecom Public and Dagon Group.
On the other end of the spectrum, 98 companies (38%) of the 260 companies assessed this year do not have corporate websites. This is nevertheless a 12% improvement from last year – in Pwint Thit Sa 2019, 108 (44%) of the 248 companies assessed did not have a website.
The leading SEEs for disclosure are Yangon Electricity Supply Corporation (YESC) and Myanmar Shipyards, the only two SEEs to score (just) above the overall average mark of 2%. While all the average scores improved in 2020, scores for SEEs went from 3% in 2019 to 2% in 2020, which is mainly attributable to their not expanding or updating data, while being scored against a more challenging scorecard.
MCRB once again completed Pwint Thit Sa in partnership with Yever, a Myanmar business consultancy, which contributed pro bono to the report. Methodologically, Pwint Thit Sa adopts the same approach adopted as in 2018 and 2019. It assesses online disclosure of information on Corporate Profile, Corporate Governance, Sustainability Management, and Reporting, and incorporates criteria from the ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard (ACGS). However, in the 2020 report, the scoring system was slightly adapted this year to distinguish the performance and practices of companies on sustainability and reporting.
Listed and public companies with over 100 shareholders were assessed against 143 criteria. Private companies and state-owned enterprises were assessed against 113 criteria, but 30 criteria could be earned as a bonus for disclosing information that listed/public > 100 shareholder companies are required to disclose. This year, a new sliding scale (0,1,2) was used for some criteria relating to policies and sustainability to reflect how closely commitments were genuinely aligned to the business and to reward companies that embraced a more holistic and comprehensive approach to disclosure instead of a compliance-driven approach. Furthermore, additional criteria were added on governance of philanthropy, and SDGs.
The report is intended to support the objectives of the 2018 Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan and Myanmar’s achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals - in particular, SDG16. During 2021, MCRB and Yever plan to support interested companies to improve their policies, reporting, disclosure and website accessibility, including for persons with disabilities, complementing the training provided by the Myanmar Institute of Directors on corporate governance.
MCRB and Yever plan to publish the next Pwint Thit Sa report in 2022.
Read also
- 2022 Pwint Thit Sa / Transparency in Myanmar Enterprises
- 2020 Pwint Thit Sa / Transparency in Myanmar Enterprises
- Corporate Disclosure in Myanmar – Regulatory Requirements and Sustainability Leadership
- Disclosure of Company Information Leads to Better Business Reporting and a Better Investment Climate
- Research Phase for Pwint Thit Sa 2020 Kicks Off With a Reminder that Transparency and Corporate Governance Are Good For Business
