MALAYSIA EMERGES 6TH PLACE IN CSR ASIA SURVEY

SINGAPORE, Oct 27 (Bernama) -- Malaysia emerged in sixth place among the top
10 Asian countries that are increasingly giving heed to corporate social
responsibility (CSR) disclosure, according to an annual survey conducted by CSR
Asia.

In the top ten list, Australia led the pack, followed by China (second),
Hong Kong (third), India (fourth), Japan (fifth), Pakistan (seventh),
Philippines (eight), Singapore (ninth) and Thailand (tenth).

The Asian Sustainability Rating (ASR) is CSR Asia's proprietary research,
which ranked the 200 largest listed companies in ten markets operating in Asia
Pacific on their sustainability disclosure.

In a news release Monday, CSR said leading companies in the Asia Pacific
region had shown an increased level of CSR disclosure, especially in the area
of corporate governance.

While the top 20 companies, including the sole Malaysia's British American
Tobacco (BAT), scored 75 per cent and above, only 60 out of 200 companies scored
above 50 per cent, CSR said.

In particular, companies in South-East Asia lagged behind with Thailand
(29.5 per cent) and Singapore (25.5 per cent) ranked low in the ratings and
Pakistan (18 per cent) was bottom, it added.

CSR said Australian companies were leading the way in reporting of CSR
activities, followed by India and Japan.

In the survey, the companies were rated against 51 indicators covering six
sections namely, governance and policy, strategy and communication, marketplace
and supply chain, workplace and people, environment, and community and
development.

Overall, Malaysia scored 59.6 per cent for governance, codes, policies, 23.4
per cent (CSR strategy and communication), 34 per cent (marketplace and supply
chain), 27.3 per cent (workplace and people), 28.4 per cent (environment) and 39
per cent (community and development).

CSR said disclosure performance by Malaysian companies had in most cases
improved over the past year and this was partly due to encouragement from both
government and the stock exchange.

In most cases disclosure scores had risen between 2008 and 2009, it said,
adding that there was still more to do however, and the large number of laggard
companies tended to drag down Malaysia's score overall.

CSR also said the breakdown of disclosure into the constituent parts of the
ASR demonstrated that although companies often had policies, codes of conduct
and relevant governance structures, they were generally poor at communicating
their CSR strategies.

It said only around one third of companies in Malaysia were disclosing more
detailed information.

CSR said the challenge for the future was for Malaysian companies to move
beyond broad policies and demonstrate real activity through more detailed
reporting.

The top 10 companies in Malaysia's CSR ranking list, apart from BAT, were
Tenaga Nasional Bhd, Bumiputra-Commerce Holdings Bhd, Telekom Malaysia Bhd, PLUS
Expressways Bhd, Petronas Gas Bhd, Public Bank Bhd, YTL Corp Bhd, MISC Bhd and
DiGi.com Bhd.
-- BERNAMA