Bangladeshi entities top SAFA award for best published annual reports

Bangladeshi entities have performed exceptionally well at the SAFA Best Published Annual Reports Award competition 2019 as they topped the list in eight categories for the south Asian region.

The companies were Bank Asia, Reliance Insurance, IDLC Finance, Orion Pharma, Grameenphone and Golden Harvest Agro Industries.

Moreover, Reliance Insurance was awarded as the 'overall winner', the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) said in a statement yesterday.

SAFA is the association of the national chartered accountancy and cost and management accountancy institutions in the Saarc countries, namely Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Afghanistan.

This is a distinctly glorious annual event of SAFA to promote transparency and accountability through the financial and non-financial disclosures in the published annual reports in Saarc countries.

Nineteen Bangladeshi listed and non-listed companies nominated by the ICAB participated in 11 out of 13 categories at this year's competition year, which was joined by a total of 101 firms from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

This outstanding performance of Bangladeshi organisations reflected the awareness of the entities in Bangladesh, striving to accomplish the highest standards of governance, compliances and disclosures of stakeholder information in their published reports, ICAB said.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) organised the virtual SAFA Best Presented Annual Reports Award, Integrated Reporting Award and SAARC Anniversary Award for Corporate Governance Disclosures 2019 ceremony yesterday.

Bangladeshi entities were connected to the programme through digital platform zoom from the ICAB Auditorium at CA Bhaban in Dhaka, according to the statement.

They received awards from ICAB President Muhammad Farooq FCA, SAFA Vice President AKM Delwer Hussain FCMA and Mohammed Humayun Kabir FCA, Member Council and former ICAB President and Chairman RCPAR of Council-ICAB.

In private sector banks category, Bank Asia was the winner, Shahjalal Islami Bank joint first runner-up and Brac bank joint second runner up.

In insurance category, Reliance Insurance was the winner while Green Delta Insurance and Prime Insurance received certificate of merit.

In financial service sector, IDLC Finance topped the list while IPDC Finance and LankaBangla Finance were joint second runner-ups.

In manufacturer category, Orion Pharma became joint winner, British American Tobacco Bangladesh first runner up and Summit Power got certificate of merit.

In communication and information technology, Grameenphone was the winner.

In service sector, Unique Hotel and Resort became second runner up. In NGOs including NPOs category, Sajida Foundation became joint first runner-up, Ghashful joint second runner-up and CODEC received certificate of merit.

In agriculture, Golden Harvest Agro Industries became joint winner. In public sector category, Investment Corporation of Bangladesh received certificate of merit.

In SAARC Anniversary Award for Corporate Governance, IDLC Finance became winner, LankaBangla Finance became first runner-up and Bank Asia joint second runner-up.

In integrated reporting, IDLC Finance become winner, LankaBangla Finance second runner up while Bank Asia received certificate of merit.