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Minutes

PBEC Working Committee on Transparency

Saturday, April 7, 2001
Tokyo, Japan

Chair: Michael Davies (Canada)
Vice Chair: John Low (Malaysia)

  1. Approval of Minutes from November 11, 2000, Singapore Working Committee Meeting

    Minutes Approved

  2. Update on International Anti-corruption Initiatives presented by the Chairman Michael Davies

    1. APEC activities
      FTAA is on track
    2. Council of Europe-no change in status
    3. Plenary session on Monday is meeting today's management challenges
    4. 10th international IACC-designing strategies and reforming corrupt institutions
    5. Transparency symposium in Tokyo-Transparency International, OECD, and ADB.
    6. Sue Hooper spoke to David MacLean (Capacity Building Network)-they hope to do another workshop at the next IGM hopefully with PBEC and the AD Institute.

  3. Roundtable Exchange on Recent Events and Initiatives in Anti-Corruption & Transparency

    1. Korea - Report on ADB/OECD Conference on Combating Corruption in the Asia Pacific Region in Korea December 11 - 13, 2000

      Transparency and Corporate Governance Korea is trying to develop an anti-corruption corporate governance environment. The government has now passed several initiatives and businesses have established codes of conduct (voluntary).
      The Federation of Korean Industries held a seminar and issued publication supporting anti-corruption initiatives.
      According to the Chairman it is important for PBEC to give examples of best practices and voice support for local initiatives, especially in the region.

    2. Columbia - Report on Anti-Corruption Conference held in Bogota, Colombia

      PBEC Colombia organized a conference last fall. It was a great success and there were many distinguished people from both the public and private sectors present.
      It provided an opportunity for panelists to evaluate progress in the war against corruption. Developing an awareness of the status of initiatives helps push for change.
      In order to strengthen the role of the private sector, they would like to schedule a follow-up conference.

    3. General Comments by the member of the working committee

      1. At the Chamber of Commerce International Chamber General Meeting in Korea, one issue on the agenda is anti-corruption. KFI is involved in organizing.
      2. It was suggested during the Director General meeting that transparency committee needs to pull together information on various international initiatives so that there's one comprehensive source.
      3. This is a good idea for the PBEC Transparency committee portion of the website. We could index various conferences as well as sources of information.
      4. Support this and suggests we include historical PBEC initiatives and other background information.
      5. The Director General of Philippine has been writing case studies gathered from ASEAN + 3. Also involved in development workshops on corporate governance. The intent is to move towards training.
      6. Roderick and Carla Hills set up a center in Russia with Washington University in the US to put out best practices survey. The core issue is what companies do to deal with anti-corruption and good corporate governance.
      7. Singapore just tightened the code of conduct for directors-how they should behave in general. He was asked to write on the linkage between governance and democracy due to ongoing political challenges faced in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
      8. Malaysia has a similar code of conduct.
      9. COLOMBIAN UN AMBASSADOR: Governments frequently have to deal with the problem of corruption and how to build institutions and preserve the rule of law. Issue is not just laws, but practices too.
      10. Reiterates problem of laws and enforcement of those laws.

  4. Update on activities related to International Accounting Standard

    1. PBEC adopted a statement in Singapore to encourage the use of International Accounting Standards. He summarizes Stuart Deming's reports.
    2. GATT 2000-status report of the alignment with IAS standards-looked a local written rules then pointed out shortcomings and encouraged progress. Role of the committee to monitor and encourage such initiatives. SEC is starting to come around to International Accounting Standards.
    3. Major auditing firms implementation of full disclosure is essential. At a conference in Hong Kong they lamented the fact that disclosure is still incomplete.
    4. Accounting firms are bankrupting because of poor accounting.

  5. Discussion of APEC's Work in Transparency in Government Procurement

    1. One of the founding reasons for the committee was to push APEC to approve non-binding principles on government procurement. Countries are currently reporting through the experts group details on compliance to the non-binding principle on Transparency.
    2. Overview of online resources and disclosure on non-binding principles. Full reviews have been done of Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. Korea will turn theirs in August.
    3. APEC has asked that all member economies report on their compliance. This information is available on the APEC website. All economies will have completed their reports by August. PBEC should keep up its role as monitor and maybe present a resolution at the 2001 MTM commending the work of the committee and making suggestions for further improvements in the process.
    4. Commends the amount of corporate governance training that is being encouraged and subsidized in the region. Invites committee to forward comments regarding the work in attendees' member economies to Sue Hooper.
    5. Supports suggestion and encourages the committee to pursue.

    In a break from the agenda, Mark Borthwick, Executive Director of US-PECC, was invited to speak about PECC's efforts in the area of corporate governance. A summary is as follows:

    • Transparency is an area where PBEC and PECC can collaborate. It was only last year the PECC became more active in the initiative begun by Stanislow (former Finance Minister of the Philippines).
    • The primary thrust of PECC's activities is the education and training of corporate directors. There is a feeling that directors are much more able to govern through corporate governments.
    • PECC began to work with directors throughout Asia in collaboration with the World Bank and the ADB. They have installed institutes in each economy that tries to educate their directors. At these institutes they have video conferencing among other institutes to discuss best practices and case studies. The project is still in need of company support in the form of more hands-on information from corporate directors.
    • The World Bank set up locations around SE Asia to have such dialogues. This is an excellency opportunity to have a virtual conference-particularly important for pushing best practices.

  6. Work Plan Discussion for 2001 - 2002

    Committee to focus on follow-up items to come out of the day's discussion.

  7. Other Business

    Michael Davies referred to Stuart Deming's other report and briefly summarized.


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Last Modified: 16 July 2001