The ever-active Asian Corporate Governance Associations (ACGA)has published CG Watch 2012,downgrading Japan's corporate governance regime to 4th in Asia, on a part (a tie) with Malaysia.Japan is also lagging most markets in not requiring any training of directors, which is shocking when the statutory auditors (ie, audit committee equivalent) are supposed to be the guard dogs of governance. A summary of the volumiminous full report is available below.
On a positive note, the fullreport mentions the positive contribution to the market being made by BDTI, and the need for director training in Japan. An excerpt:
Meanwhile, a group of CG experts in Japan set up a new non-profit organisation, the Board Director Training Institute (BDTI), to offer continuing education of this type. BDTI is the only group in Japan certified by the government as a tax-exempt “public-interest organisation” working in this field. This is a significant achievement and marks the first time that the Japanese government has acknowledged corporate governance training as being in the public interest.
ACGA also proposed a set of four quick fix simplemeasures that Japan could easily take in order to improve overall corporate governance. One of the items was increase director training.
From ACGA's web site:
CG Watch 2012, our sixth joint survey of corporate governance in Asia undertaken in collaboration with CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, has just been launched. A summary of ACGA's new market rankings is available here.
Singapore tops the survey again, with Hong Kong not far behind. Rising markets include Thailand, Malaysia, India, Korea, and the Philippines. Falling ones include Japan, Taiwan, China and Indonesia.
For more details on the survey, please go to ACGA News. The report is available to members in the Premium content section of our website.
ACGA Summary of CG Market Watch 2012 Rankings:
http://bdti.mastertree.jp/f/tslcwybg
(click at lower right)
The Board Director Training Institute (BDTI) is a "public interest" nonprofit in Japan dedicated to training about directorship, corporate governance, and related management techniques. It is certified by the Japanese government to conduct these activities as a regulated nonprofit. Read a summary about BDTI here, and see a menu of its services for both corporations and investors here.