East Asia and the Pacific

Objectives

IFC’s East Asia Pacific Corporate Governance Program helps strengthen markets and stabilize businesses across the region. With a focus on long term sustainability, the goal is to improve financial performance, operational efficiency, and access to capital by strengthening corporate governance fundamentals. Launched in 2014, the program is funded by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs of Switzerland (SECO), Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

What We Do

IFC provides advice to companies, SMEs, private equity funds and banks on improving their corporate governance practices, based on international standards. Specific areas of focus include:

Board practices
Shareholder rights
Internal and external controls
Risk management
Transparency
Family business governance and reporting
Regulatory enforcement
Dispute resolution

Efforts also include building local capacity and working with multiple market stakeholders to promote broader acceptance of good corporate governance.

We work with regulators, stock exchanges and securities exchange commissions, supporting reforms through corporate governance codes and listing rules. We also work with corporate governance institutes/institutes of directors, educational institutions and the media to raise awareness and share knowledge.

Where We Work

IFC’s corporate governance activities are tailored to the specific needs of the markets where we work: Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Pacific, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Project Highlight: Attracting Investment Facilitated by Corporate Governance in Mongolia

Attracting investment in Mongolia – at least in non-extractive sectors – has been challenging, especially since the country’s economic downturn in 2011. But Mongolian corporations that put good corporate governance practices in place have attracted attention from investors, sometimes resulting in fruitful, long-term partnerships.

Khan Bank, a leading lender to smaller businesses and an IFC client since 2004, attributes over $120 million of additional investment between 2011 and 2014 to improved corporate governance. Such investments have helped the bank improve its services: it now has more than 500 branches and provides banking services to an estimated 70 percent of the Mongolian population.

Tenger Financial Group (TFG), another IFC client, reports a similar experience. TFG and its main subsidiary XacBank acknowledge that better corporate governance “played a significant role” in obtaining around $400 million in new investments between 2011 and 2014. The additional funds enabled XacBank to successfully turn itself from a microfinance institution into a large-scale commercial lender.

Both XacBank and Khan Bank employ thousands of Mongolians, providing steady jobs and sustaining the local economy. In Mongolia, better corporate governance helped a total of five IFC client firms improve performance; three of them managed to access financing of over $400 million, of which $177 million was from IFC.

IFC also partnered with local institutions to prepare materials in Mongolian on corporate governance and conducted a series of training events led by international experts in the field. Broader outreach was achieved by training trainers in local institutions who reached a total of 331 firms and trained more than 2,600 people.

The benefits of better corporate governance in Mongolia extend beyond IFC’s client base. Mongolia’s ranking under the minority investor protection category in the World Bank Group’s Doing Business report improved from 24th in 2009 to 8th in 2016. Doing Business attributes this to “strengthened investor protections by increasing the disclosure requirements for related-party transactions” and enhanced minority investor protections. Corporate governance can give Mongolia an edge as it develops its significant mineral resources and positions itself in international markets

Resources

CG Focus Indonesia
A regular installment that provides IFC clients with insights into the evolving corporate governance landscape in Indonesia and advocate the adoption of leading governance practices.

Corporate Governance Program East Asia and the Pacific - Annual Summary 2016
A review of the regional project’s key work highlights in 2016

Vietnam Guidebook for Banks: Related Party Transactions, January 2016
This publication aims to help Vietnamese commercial banks improve the oversight and transparency of related party transactions

Corporate Governance Program East Asia and the Pacific - Annual Summary 2015
A review of the regional project’s key work highlights in 2015

Corporate Governance in Vietnam: Success Stories, June 2015
A collection of success stories highlighting Vietnamese companies with exemplary models of corporate governance

Understanding Indonesia Corporate Governance Manual and Roadmap, February 2014
The manual gives an overview of how Indonesian companies could improve their corporate governance and provides a bridge between internationally recognized best practices and local laws, codes and regulations, while the roadmap -- prepared by the Corporate Governance Task Force (CGTF) of Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) – outlines its plan to strengthen corporate governance regulation in Indonesia for listed companies and new issuers

IFC Corporate Governance Advisory Services: Helping Companies to Operate More Profitably and Grow (in Bahasa Indonesia), February 2014
A pamphlet introducing IFC’s corporate governance advisory services in Indonesia

Corporate Governance Scorecard for Mongolia (2013 Review)
This survey of corporate governance practices in Mongolia is intended to be a baseline survey to establish a starting point and is expected to create awareness of and increase knowledge of corporate governance in Mongolia. It is likely to be used for future comparative purposes, measuring progress on corporate governance in Mongolia

Private Sector Opinion 26: Guanxi, Mianzi, and Business: The Impact of Culture on Corporate Governance in China, May 2012
Before taking advantage of the growing opportunities of the Chinese market, investors will do well to understand the strong influence of Chinese culture on the way businesses operate, how they govern themselves, and how they interact with each other

Corporate Governance Scorecards - Versatile Tool for Companies, Investors, and Regulators, March 2011
Experiences from Southeast Europe and East Asia

IFC Family Business Governance Handbook
Available in Burmese, Chinese, Khmer, Mongolian, and Vietnamese.

August 2018