Mr. Kittiratt Na-Ranong, the President of the SET, in announcing that so as to make the continuation to the workshop "Good Corporate Governance: You Manage, We Oversee" held to promote the 2002 Year of Good Corporate Governance, the SET, in conjunction with the SEC and TRIS are in the process of applying the good corporate governance rating. A meeting has been held to clarify the rating criteria to, as well as gaining views and discussion from, the directors, executives and secretaries of listed companies so as to give them an outline for improving their corporate governance system and to provide an opportunity for them to prepare well before TRIS begin conducting the rating from 16 September 2002 onwards.
Mr. Kittiratt said that "The criteria of good corporate governance rating that TRIS presented to the meeting attendants is comprised of four unequally weighted criteria: Structure of investor protection and its application-appropriate shareholding structure, the shareholders must obtain their basic rights, obtain sufficient, complete and timely information, and etc. Directors' structure and responsibilities-balance of power, establishment of specific committee to serve specific roles, transparency of remuneration standard, etc., Disclosure standard of key information and transparency-careful, precise and timely production of the information, disclosing easy and equal access to the information, etc., and finally the Corporate culture of good governance-the company must create an awareness through internal climate and activities both in the director level and executives level, from the vice president or equivalent up."
The scoring system will from the lowest 1 to the highest 10. It will take TRIS 2-3 months in completing the ranking. After the ranking is completed, whenever the company would like to know its status, it can also ask for a TRIS review. The rating review will take about 1.5 - 2 months.
"For the meeting held, TRIS and the SEC will take all the views of participants into consideration in order to adjust the criteria to be more appropriate before it will announced and applied to the companies. The SET is, either way, confident that participation in the good corporate governance program will create an added value to the businesses as well as the trustworthiness the investors have on them. Furthermore, companies with good ranking will be entitled to receive incentives from the Ministry of Commerce, the Revenue Department, the SET, the SEC, and many other related organizations. For example, the SET will offer 50 percent discount on an annual fee for two consecutive years, which the SET has set aside a budget of 200 million baht for. At the meantime, the SEC also offer a discount on securities issuing fee as well as facilitating the fund raising process of the companies." the SET President explained.
