Message from Prof. Ho Yew Kee, Chairman - Panel of Judges
It is my tremendous privilege to be able to say a few words as the Chairman of the Panel of Judges and my greetings goes to Prof. Watawala, the President of CMA Sri Lanka.
As I say a few words concerning the competition this year, what I would like to do first is to go back to our original purpose of having this competition.
The purpose of the CMA Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards is to promote Sri Lankan companies both listed and unlisted and State-owned institutions / companies to undertake integrated reporting which will be beneficial to investors and stakeholders.
We are talking about promoting Sri Lankan companies. Sri Lanka has chosen a very appropriate tool in which they are able to signal to the rest of the world about the quality of the companies and how they may be able to use this tool to invite foreign investments. And this concerns both listed & unlisted companies and also State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to come forward to use this framework in order to communicate value creation they had for their stakeholders.
This is the 7th year in our journey and later on you will be able to see that the progress has been significant over the years.
The ultimate pattern is that we may be able to benefit investors as stakeholders not merely reporting the financial numbers but the entirety concerning how the company is contributing values to the whole of the society.
To give you some statistics about the participation in the competition, this year there were 41 participants and 25 companies were short listed.
Over the years DIMO won the Gold award and obtained the first place six times, the Silver Award and 2nd place was won by JKH 3 times, LB Finance 2 times, NDB once, the bronze award or 3rd place was won by Mercantile Investments and Finance 2 times, NDB, Softlogic Life Insurance, National Savings Bank , JKH once.
It became more and more difficult for us to select the top three companies. So this year the judges unanimously decided to create a new category called “Platinum Award”. This is particularly given to the company who has demonstrated consistently the excellence that they have in terms of integrated reporting. In doing so, Judges were confident that they will continue to do well in future competitions as well. Hence, this Platinum award will free up the slots and allow other companies to enter into Top three.
These are some of the observations we have made as we answer the question of how is 2021 different from the previous years. • Continuing improvement in the quality of the IR
External assurance obtained on Integrated Reporting
Greater confidence and linkage to other information (SDG)
Using IR as a tool for the purpose of articulating the value creation and integrated thinking of the company.
I like to take this opportunity to appreciate basically three groups of individuals in relation to this completion. First, I like to thank Prof. Watawala and Ms. Jinandi Chandraratne and the team of CMA Sri Lanka, Members of the technical evaluation committee and Members of the Judging Panel.
Finally I would like to congratulate all the winners and the companies who took part in this competition.