Singapore to host Third Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance, 4-6 April 2001

In many Asian businesses, boards of directors are often little more than formal overseers of the affairs of companies dominated by family shareholders, rather than the dynamic drivers of corporate performance that are needed to encourage investor confidence in such firms. Ways of enhancing and expanding the role of company boards will be the topic of an international roundtable on corporate governance to be held in Singapore on 4-6 April 2001, co-organised by the OECD with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The Third Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance will bring together senior policy-makers, regulators, business leaders and investors from Asia and other parts of the world to set an agenda for corporate governance action in the region. Among other things, participants will discuss the "Asian White Paper on Corporate Governance", an agenda for proposed reform action to be submitted to governments, private groups and international organisations.

The proceedings are open to the media. There will also be a news conference at 10.30 a.m., Wednesday 4 April at the Shangri-La Hotel. Participants will include Seiichi Kondo, OECD Deputy Secretary-General and Myoung-Ho Shin, Vice-President Asian Development Bank.

 

Focussing on "the Role of Boards and Stakeholders in Corporate Governance", participants will review ways in which boards of directors can improve their monitoring of management, shaping of company strategies and enhancement of corporate accountability. They will also discuss ways in which corporations can best address stakeholders’ concerns in a timely and systematic way, so as enhance consumer loyalty and confidence and employee morale. Such an approach, though it may mark a shift in practice for many Asian companies, can respond to the concerns of investors by indirectly helping to increase the long-term value of a company.

This meeting, the third in a planned series of five Roundtable meetings on Corporate Governance in the Asian region, will be co-hosted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Singapore Institute of Directors and the Singapore Exchange, with support from the Japanese Government and the Global Corporate Governance Forum.

Documentation presented during the discussions at the Third Roundtable meeting will be made public and disseminated. For further information, please contact Helen Fisher, OECD Media-Relations (tel : 33 1 45 24 80 97), Manuela Caruso in the OECD Corporate Affairs Division (tel: 33 1 49 10 43 47) or Valerie Tay, at the International Relations Department, Monetary Authority of Singapore (tel: 65 229 9872).