Welcome & Acknowledgements

Dear Members, Delegates, Panellists and Friends,

Welcome to the “Asian Business Dialogue on Corporate Governance 2024”, ACGA’s 23rd annual conference. This is our third conference in Singapore, too long since our last one in 2005 although with two others in the Asean region in the intervening time (Thailand in 2012, Malaysia in 2015). Following input from our members, we chose Singapore for the conference this year for various reasons: the island republic continues to be in the top-tier of markets in our CG Watch rankings and pushes ahead with improving disclosures and incorporating global sustainability reporting standards. A stewardship as well as activist investor community is growing in the city state. Hence it was opportune to come back to Singapore for the conference to bring these developments into focus.

2024 has been a year of elections globally. Within Asia, the two largest democracies – India and Indonesia – have gone to the poll and will be followed at the end of October by Japan. Across the two days of our conference, the US has its elections as well. Transitions in political leadership are underway with a backdrop of wars and turmoil in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The way forward for governance and sustainability, bucketed under the acronym ESG, becomes especially relevant and will be a panel topic together with our final session on carbon transition plans.

The theme of this year’s conference, “Taking corporate governance to the next level in Asia”, is indeed timely. Japan has set out its Action Program, Korea its Value Up plan and even China just closed a consultation on companies to protect market value. Hence, our opening plenary, “CG Reform: Japan, Korea and the pathway for other markets”. The potential for governments, in some cases with new leaders, seeking to reset the governance framework towards value creation and not just compliance makes this a very interesting juncture for Asian markets. The overall theme of the conference is set to infuse the various panel discussions, which range from stewardship, activism, effectiveness of independent directors, advancing diversity, compensation, corruption and fraud, as well as artificial intelligence. With 45 speakers from 11 countries, we trust that this ACGA conference, like others before it, will challenge conventional thinking and provide new and practical ideas!

One factor that has allowed the “Asian Business Dialogue” to focus on programme content and speaker quality is the invaluable support of our sponsors. We would like to thank the following organisations for their generosity:

We are also grateful for the support of Investment Management Association of Singapore (IMAS) for being a supporting partner.

A huge amount of work goes into organising each “Asian Business Dialogue” and the related events. I would like to thank all members of the ACGA Secretariat for the tremendous effort to bring this year’s conference to a successful fruition, especially in a year of transition for our organisation. Much appreciation must also go to the ACGA Council, in particular Yuelin Yang based here, for support in organising and contributing to the programme of the conference.

Finally, our gratitude to all our speakers and delegates this year. With your efforts and sharing your viewpoints, we trust it will be a memorable and worthwhile event for all. Thank you.

Amar Gill