The Norwegian Embassy in Myanmar has congratulated its partner, Myanmar Center for Responsible Business (MCRB), on a new Business Integrity Handbook which was launched last month, according to a report in ScandAsia.

The new “Business Integrity Handbook” provides information in English and Myanmar languages. The book aims at providing guidance for businesses in Myanmar to support their anti-corruption programmes, drawing on inspiration from examples in Myanmar and elsewhere.

The handbook has been published in collaboration with the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

According to the MCRB, the handbook, available in English and Myanmar, aims to provide guidance for businesses in Myanmar to support their anti-corruption programmes, drawing on inspiration from examples in Myanmar and elsewhere.

It is structured around the eight principles for companies to take action to combat corruption issued by the Anti-Corruption Commission in 2018. These are:

Strong, effective policy and support from top-level management to fight corruption;

Risk assessment to effectively identify and evaluate exposure to corruption;

Enhanced and detailed measures for high-risk and vulnerable areas;

Application of anti-corruption measures to business partners;

Accurate books and accounting records;

Human resource management policies complementary to anti-corruption measures;

Establish trustworthy reporting mechanisms to report suspected corrupt behaviour;

Periodic review and evaluation of anticorruption prevention measures.

The handbook gives suggestions to companies on how they can individually put those eight principles into practice, and how they can collectively work with others to do so. Also included are additional resources such as guidelines for a company’s codes of conduct, and gift policy.