The Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB) launched its third Transparency in Myanmar Enterprises (TiME)/Pwint Thit Sa report on 16 September.
The 2016 report shows that that the top companies which performed best in 2015 continued to be the most transparent in 2016, the MCRB said in a statement. All of them have increased the amount of information that they make available to the public. The most transparent large Myanmar company was First Myanmar Investment (FMI) (not assessed in 2015 and this year scored separately to SPA) followed in second place by Serge Pun Associates (1st in 2015), with Max Myanmar (2nd in 2015) coming in third place. Amongst the leading companies, new areas of disclosure were publication of financial data, grievance mechanisms, and environmental and social impact assessments.
However, 34 of the 100 companies surveyed still had no website, and 45 of the 100 companies either did not have fully functioning websites or published little to no data relating to corporate governance.
Vicky Bowman, Director of the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business reported “I would like to congratulate Serge Pun’s FMI and SPA for once again heading up the table. The competition at the top end remains intense and most of the best-performing companies on transparency took further steps to disclose information this year.”
On the lack of improvement at the bottom of the table Vicky Bowman notes “However it is still disappointing that some major players in the Myanmar economy do not appear to show any interest in disclosure, even though it is increasingly becoming a Myanmar legal requirement, particularly when it comes to environmental impact assessments. Furthermore, he draft Companies Act which will apply to all companies in the survey requires a Director’s Report which should include reporting of risks and uncertainties.”
This year’s report also includes companies which have listed or plan to list in the Yangon Stock Exchange, analyses the current YSX disclosure requirements and make recommendations.