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Manila Bulletin devider Business devider The Stock Market devider SEC's Lim sees growing maturity of corporate governance in SEA

SEC's Lim sees growing maturity of corporate governance in SEA

Published Aug 5, 2025 04:41 pm
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Francis Lim underscored the growing maturity of corporate governance in the ASEAN despite the adoption of more rigorous standards.
Lim spoke during the 2025 ASEAN Corporate Governance Conference and Awards (CGCA) held last July 24 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Philippine SEC is the Chair and Secretariat of the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum (ACMF) Working Group on Corporate Governance.
Organized by the Minority Shareholders Watch Group with support from the ACMF and the Asian Development Bank, the event brought together over 400 participants, including regulators, publicly listed companies (PLCs), institutional investors, and corporate governance (CG) experts from across the region.
The ASEAN CGCA recognized top-performing PLCs based on the results of the 2024 ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard (ACGS) assessment.
“Tonight is more than a celebration—it is a reunion of advocates, a reaffirmation of our shared commitment to excellence, and a reminder of how far we’ve come in strengthening corporate governance across ASEAN,” said Lim who also sits as chair of the ACMF Working Group on Corporate Governance.
He noted that, “Despite heightened standards, ASEAN companies have not only kept pace—they have exceeded expectations.
“The results speak for themselves or as we lawyers say: res ipsa loquitur. When we introduced the ASEAN Asset Class recognition in 2019, only 135 PLCs qualified.This year, that number has risen to 250. This remarkable increase reflects growing awareness of the value of strong governance and transparency.”
The 2024 ACGS assessment marked the first application of the revised scorecard, aligned with the 2023 G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance which placed greater emphasis on sustainability, board effectiveness, and stakeholder engagement.
A total of 569 PLCs from six participating ASEAN member countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, were evaluated solely based on publicly available disclosures.
Performing strongly in the assessment, six Philippine companies earned spots in the ASEAN Top 50 PLCs, while 35 received ASEAN Asset Class distinctions awarded to PLCs that scored at least 97.5 points, equivalent to 75 percent of the maximum attainable score of 130 under the ACGS.
As chair and secretariat of the ASEAN Working Group on Corporate Governance, the SEC Philippines reaffirms its unwavering commitment to promoting transparency, accountability, and long-term value creation through high standards of corporate governance across the region.

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Securities and Exchange Commission Francis Ed. Lim
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