Leading the list were Bao Viet Holding (BVH), DHG Pharma (DHG), PetroVietnam Drilling Corp. (PVD), PetroVietnam Fertilisers and Chemicals Co. (DPM) and Vinamilk (VNM).—File Photo

HCM CITY (Biz Hub) — Fifty out of the nearly 700 companies listed on Viet Nam's stock exchanges were honoured yesterday based on information about their business strategy, transparency and sustainability in their annual reports.

The appearance of their reports was another criteria this year.

Leading the list were Bao Viet Holding (BVH), DHG Pharma (DHG), PetroVietnam Drilling Corp. (PVD), PetroVietnam Fertilisers and Chemicals Co. (DPM) and Vinamilk (VNM).

Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Binh Minh Plastics Co. (BMP), Vietcombank (VCB) and Financing and Promoting Technology Corp (FPT) followed.

This year, five companies won the first-ever Sustainability Reporting Award, which included a first and second prize, and three consolation prizes.

The World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the UK-based global body Association of Chartered Certified Accountants judged the sustainability reporting, selecting the five awardees based on a total of 88 annual reports that included sustainable development issues.

The first prize went to Vinamilk and the second to BVH. The consolation prizes were granted to DHG, PVD and HSC.

The Annual Report Awards contest was first organised in 2008 by the HCM City Stock Exchange, Vietnam Investment Review's sister publication Dau tu Chung khoan and fund management company Dragon Capital.

Tran Anh Tuan, editor-in-chief of Dau tu Chung khoan, said this year's entries had adhered to the guidelines published in Circular 52/2012/TT-BTC that replaced Circular 09/2010/TT-BTC on publishing information about the stock market. The new circular is in its first year.

Phan Thi Tuong Tam, CEO of the HCM City Stock Exchange and head of the awards' organising committee, said: "Investors are paying more and more attention to annual reports. Therefore, we have made efforts to improve competition criteria year after year, in both quality and appearance of the report."

"As for next year's criteria, we will work out more norms for transparency to require more honesty in publishing information. For example, companies will have to include sustainability reporting and analyses of operations, and corporate governance must be more specific instead of being general as now. We will announce the norms for next year before we start publicity on the 2014 contest," he added.

Pham Nguyen Vinh, business development director at Dragon Capital, said the contest was a good media channel for promoting corporate awareness of annual reports and sustainability reporting.

"When the economy becomes stable, companies that will benefit from it will be those who respect investors and partners to build trust and attract more investors through two-way information exchange," he added.

ACCA Vietnam member Nguyen Viet Thinh, advisory partner at PwC Vietnam, team leader in charge of sustainability reporting judging, said: "It is worth noting that this year, the reports took into account social and environmental issues, not just charity activities. Many reports include many details on the use of electricity, oil and water, as well as the volume of re-used water and waste discharged."

"Many companies have identified sustainability as part of their business strategies. Some companies have started applying reporting standards and their reports turned out to be more reliable and convincing than the ones that do not apply the standards," he said. — VNS