Best annual report and the transparency award from NBG

On December 17, at the National Parliamentary Library, the “Best Annual Report and Transparency Award” was awarded to the 3 prize winners for the first time this year.

The Best Annual Report and Transparency Award is launched by the National Reforms Support Foundation (RSF), with support from the European Union, the World Bank, the Georgian Stock Exchange (GSE), the National Bank of Georgia, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

The award seeks to promote healthy competition between companies and raise the overall standard of corporate reporting by enhancing the country's investor confidence both locally and internationally.

The award ceremony was opened by the President of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) Koba Gvenetadze. In his speech, he spoke in great detail about one of the important directions of the capital market as a financial system that is still in its development phase, noting that the small scale of the market remains the major challenge - there has been a significant increase in debt securities market activity in recent years:

“In the past 5 years, the size of the state-owned and corporate securities market has increased by approximately 14 times, which is the growth of 31% and 69%. I would like to note that this tendency is a result of NBG’s and governments' recent activities,” said Gvenetadze.

According to the NBG president, several important reforms have been implemented in the area of treasury bonds, including the upgrading of infrastructure and the systematization of benchmark bond issuance. Significant progress has been made in reforming the legal and regulatory framework for the capital market. It is noteworthy that in 2018, the NBG became an associate member of IOSCO, further enhancing our market reputation and credibility.

“The transparency of public securities issuers will play a major role in the future success of the Georgian capital market; this will, in turn, improve our ability to attract local and foreign investors. Therefore, I would like to emphasize once again the importance of high standards of transparency and corporate governance, which are essential to create a fairer and more attractive capital market,” Gvenetadze commented.

In his speech, the President of the NBG also spoke about the recent legislative changes that the NBG has elaborated in order to improve the reporting infrastructure and increase the efficiency.

According to Gvenetadze, starting from the next year, within the framework of the joint project of the NBG and Accounting, auditing and reporting supervision service 'One Window Principle' will result in simplifying reporting, disclosure and administration process for securities issuers, which in itself is a process effect.

“It will also increase the availability of financial and other information on issuers, whether existing or potential,” noted NBG president.

There were 16 shortlisted nominees for the 2019 award, including financial institutions, non-financial companies with more than 500 employees and non-financial companies up to 500 employees.

“The selection process was conducted using a robust methodology that emphasized, among other things, the provision of non-financial information which addresses intangible assets such as brand, customer reputation, know-how and goodwill that drive corporate value,” says the World Bank.

This year, nominations were accepted from companies trading on the GSE. In 2020, unlisted companies will be also accepted as a nominee.

16 companies admitted to trading on the Georgian Stock Exchange participated in the competition. The winning companies were identified by a competent jury. JSC TBC Bank won the nomination of major financial institutions, while JSC Telasi won the category of large non-financial institutions. Victory from small companies was won by LLC Georgian Leasing Company. The winner of the honorary award was JSC Crystal.

The awards ceremony was attended by international experts, heads of businesses, financial institutions, large corporations and representatives of international organizations, embassies, sectoral associations and audits, and consulting companies.