Corruption in Asia continues to be a drag on growing economies, draining billions of dollars from economic development and triggering a public backlash in some places. Calls for reform are coming from the private sector and United Nations even as the region’s economic prospects improve.
When protestors took to the streets of Bangkok last year, calls were made for the Thai Government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to address signs of growing corruption in Thailand.
A 79-year-old businessman pointed to rising costs of doing business, including bribes for officials.
“I am an industrialist. I cannot stand anymore because we have to pay under the table so much money," he said. "Before, all right you have to accept that before it was about five and ten per cent. But now it’s a minimum 30 per cent - minimum is 30 per cent."
Estimates for how much economic activity is lost to corruption are difficult to judge, but a recent study by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce concluded that over two per cent of national output or some $11 billion is likely to be lost to corruption this year.
The university said many from the private sector who were surveyed said they are paying more bribes to government officers and politicians to win government contracts.
Thai political economist, Pasuk Pongpaichit, says although there is evidence that indicates authorities are making progress in curbing lower level corruption, the slowing global economy means growing competition for lucrative government contracts.
"Globalization, the international pressure for Thailand to become more transparent is being felt and various government departments are responding to it. It doesn’t mean that things are going to happen very quickly," she said. "On the other hand, as the world economy is slowing down and the local business is become more competitive, you could see that on specific cases the rate of corruption may have increased because of the higher competition.”
Analysts say the Thai Government is already under scrutiny for spending more than $11 billion on water management infrastructure following the 2011 floods and a further $67 billion on rail and other building projects. Economists have also charged a $33 billion rice price support program for farmers is beset by corruption allegations.
Bandid Nijathaworn, a former central bank deputy governor and now president of the Thai Institute of Directors, says corruption in Thailand appears to be more of a problem now than 10 years ago.
"Corruption is a global problem," he said. "You see corruption appearing as headlines in many countries. So it has become a global issue both in national organization and individual country’s governments trying to tackle it. In the case of Thailand we are having a greater challenge because the problem seems to be worsening than maybe 10 years ago.”
Despite posting robust economic growth during the past decade, many countries in Asia still rank poorly on international anti-corruption indices.
A recent report by the U.S.-based Center for International Policy said that in China alone between 2001 and 2010, $2.74 trillion in illegal funds left the country, through criminal financial schemes, corruption, tax evasion or other illegal activities. For Thailand the figure stood at $64 billion over the same period. In India, the center of major ant-corruption rallies last year, the figure stood at $123 billion.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) regional anti-corruption adviser, Shervin Majlessi, says given Asia’s growing influence in the world economy, there is a greater need for oversight.
"Generally, speaking when you have this kind of fast economic growth we are witnessing in this region, it comes with the same challenges and opportunities in terms of corruption," he said. "The challenge is obviously there is more financial flows, there are bigger contracts, procurements, the opportunities for corruption to increase. So you need stronger anti-corruption systems and regimes in place."
In 2003 the U.N. passed a Convention against Corruption. In South East Asia, Burma, ratified the convention in December - the last to do so of the 10 member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
UNODC’s Majlessi says for ASEAN governments the key is to implement the reforms set out under the U.N. convention.
"Now the whole of ASEAN is finally covered by this convention. So this is kind of positive news," he said. "There is a key challenge in the implementation of this kind of international norms and standards and that taken time including legal reforms, international reforms and most importantly political will to actually implement this kind of instrument."
The Asian Development Bank is also supporting ASEAN through a Corporate Governance Scoreboard to promote transparency in business.
Thai Institute of Directors' Bandid Nijathaworn, who oversees a new group of companies aimed at fighting corruption, says private sector involvement is also critical for anti-corruption efforts to succeed.
“I think the momentum is building and people and people feel that in order to address the corruption issue you need to look at both the demand side and the supply side of corruption," he said. "Usually companies are being looked at on the supply side of the corruption, so getting the companies together we hope to reduce the supply side of corruption.”
Analysts say the corruption fight needs to go beyond government law enforcement, and include non-government and private sector organizations.
The Open Knowledge Conference in Geneva attracted delegates from 55 countries, indicating that open, public data is indeed becoming a global movement around the world.
How is Open Data adopted in Asia, the largest continent of this planet where 60 per cent of the world’s population live?
Asia has some of the most advanced internet economies, as well as some of the least developed countries with hardly any access to information or information infrastructure, neither analogue nor digital.
At OKCon, 26 participants from 11 Asian countries were present, including Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Russia. In this blog, I focus on selected East Asian and Pacific countries: New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea (North Asian and Pacific nations); and Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar (South-East Asian nations). Getting reliable data from all 49 Asian countries would require much more research, and these countries are grouped together in the Worldbank Knowledge Economy Index.
Despite being grouped together in the Worldbank Knowledge Economy Index (KEI), these countries have vastly different economic rankings. New Zealand achieved the highest Knowledge Economy score, closely followed by Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, whereas Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar score lowest in all KEI categories (ICT, education, economic incentive and institutional regime, innovation). Other key indicators relevant for Open Data development are the Corruption Perception Index (Transparency International), the World Internet Statistics and the Democracy Index (EIU) as a measure for general governance and functioning of government.
According to the 2012 World Internet Statistics, the overall internet penetration in Asia is only 27.5 per cent, but this still means the Asian continent is home to more users than any other, with over 1 billion. Internet penetration across the listed countries ranges from 1 per cent in Myanmar to 88 per cent in New Zealand; again with a wide gap between North and South East Asia (except for Singapore with 75 per cent).
South East Asia has often been described as “information black hole” in scholarly research on national information strategies, with many governments restricting or denying access to information to their citizens, often based on the assumption that government information by default is a secret. Earlier this month, the government of Vietnam enacted the “Decree 72” which limits the use of blogs and social media to “providing or exchanging personal information”, and prohibits them from being used to disseminate news or even information from government sites.
The law also bans content which could be “harmful” to national security or which opposes the government. This kind of restriction is based on the perception that governments own the information and can control its use, and that information-empowered citizens and businesses are potentially dangerous.
While North Asian countries, as well as New Zealand and Australia, mostly have Freedom of Information (FOI) laws in place (with the exception of Hong Kong); in South East Asia, FOI laws are more the exception than the rule. Even in the otherwise highly developed information economy of Singapore, there are many areas where the government argues that information needs to be kept confidential in the public interest, which explains why citizens cannot access and analyse data related to the size of assets in the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), a sovereign wealth fund owned by the Government of Singapore.
Sometimes laws are in place, but they are not fully applied. In Thailand, the country’s Official Information Act (OIA) was enacted in 1997, but “the concept of freedom of information is totally new to both Thai state officials and to the people. Thai society thus needs some time to learn more about the Information Law. State officials have to understand the procedures of law enforcement better so that they know how to provide information services and disclose information to meet public requests. Meanwhile, people should recognize their right to know and know how to utilize the Information Act as a means of access to state information.
Thai society should recognize information law as an essential part of establishing accountable and transparent government and as a crucial part of eventually building up civil society” (Quote by N. Seriak, Office of Official Information Commission). In 2000, the law was therefore amended to include strategic guidelines on how to promote and develop the acknowledgement of the Act’s content, its utilization, the mechanism and the procedures to utilize the Act to meet people’s right to access information. This example illustrates that the idea of open information also requires a new way of thinking about information, both for government officials and citizens.
Only 4 of the listed 15 countries are full democracies according to the EIU index – New Zealand, Australia, Japan and South Korea; they are also members of the OECD. The majority of countries in Asia fall into the categories of “flawed” democracies (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia), Singapore is a “hybrid system” and at the bottom are authoritarian governments such as Vietnam, Laos (lowest overall score) and Myanmar, which is now currently moving into another phase of political governance. In August this year, Myanmar officially ended censorship, thereby jumping up to 151st out of 179 countries in the World Press Freedom index.
There are few economic studies about the tangible and intangible value of open information, perhaps because the causality is not directly measurable, most of the time. On the other hand, it might be easier to analyse examples on the cost of non-open data, in hindsight of events where data was not available.
When protestors took to the streets of Bangkok last year, calls were made for the Thai Government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to address signs of growing corruption in Thailand.
A 79-year-old businessman pointed to rising costs of doing business, including bribes for officials.
“I am an industrialist. I cannot stand anymore because we have to pay under the table so much money," he said. "Before, all right you have to accept that before it was about five and ten per cent. But now it’s a minimum 30 per cent - minimum is 30 per cent."
Estimates for how much economic activity is lost to corruption are difficult to judge, but a recent study by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce concluded that over two per cent of national output or some $11 billion is likely to be lost to corruption this year.
The university said many from the private sector who were surveyed said they are paying more bribes to government officers and politicians to win government contracts.
Thai political economist, Pasuk Pongpaichit, says although there is evidence that indicates authorities are making progress in curbing lower level corruption, the slowing global economy means growing competition for lucrative government contracts.
"Globalization, the international pressure for Thailand to become more transparent is being felt and various government departments are responding to it. It doesn’t mean that things are going to happen very quickly," she said. "On the other hand, as the world economy is slowing down and the local business is become more competitive, you could see that on specific cases the rate of corruption may have increased because of the higher competition.”
Analysts say the Thai Government is already under scrutiny for spending more than $11 billion on water management infrastructure following the 2011 floods and a further $67 billion on rail and other building projects. Economists have also charged a $33 billion rice price support program for farmers is beset by corruption allegations.
Bandid Nijathaworn, a former central bank deputy governor and now president of the Thai Institute of Directors, says corruption in Thailand appears to be more of a problem now than 10 years ago.
"Corruption is a global problem," he said. "You see corruption appearing as headlines in many countries. So it has become a global issue both in national organization and individual country’s governments trying to tackle it. In the case of Thailand we are having a greater challenge because the problem seems to be worsening than maybe 10 years ago.”
Despite posting robust economic growth during the past decade, many countries in Asia still rank poorly on international anti-corruption indices.
A recent report by the U.S.-based Center for International Policy said that in China alone between 2001 and 2010, $2.74 trillion in illegal funds left the country, through criminal financial schemes, corruption, tax evasion or other illegal activities. For Thailand the figure stood at $64 billion over the same period. In India, the center of major ant-corruption rallies last year, the figure stood at $123 billion.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) regional anti-corruption adviser, Shervin Majlessi, says given Asia’s growing influence in the world economy, there is a greater need for oversight.
"Generally, speaking when you have this kind of fast economic growth we are witnessing in this region, it comes with the same challenges and opportunities in terms of corruption," he said. "The challenge is obviously there is more financial flows, there are bigger contracts, procurements, the opportunities for corruption to increase. So you need stronger anti-corruption systems and regimes in place."
In 2003 the U.N. passed a Convention against Corruption. In South East Asia, Burma, ratified the convention in December - the last to do so of the 10 member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
UNODC’s Majlessi says for ASEAN governments the key is to implement the reforms set out under the U.N. convention.
"Now the whole of ASEAN is finally covered by this convention. So this is kind of positive news," he said. "There is a key challenge in the implementation of this kind of international norms and standards and that taken time including legal reforms, international reforms and most importantly political will to actually implement this kind of instrument."
The Asian Development Bank is also supporting ASEAN through a Corporate Governance Scoreboard to promote transparency in business.
Thai Institute of Directors' Bandid Nijathaworn, who oversees a new group of companies aimed at fighting corruption, says private sector involvement is also critical for anti-corruption efforts to succeed.
“I think the momentum is building and people and people feel that in order to address the corruption issue you need to look at both the demand side and the supply side of corruption," he said. "Usually companies are being looked at on the supply side of the corruption, so getting the companies together we hope to reduce the supply side of corruption.”
Analysts say the corruption fight needs to go beyond government law enforcement, and include non-government and private sector organizations.
The Open Knowledge Conference in Geneva attracted delegates from 55 countries, indicating that open, public data is indeed becoming a global movement around the world.
How is Open Data adopted in Asia, the largest continent of this planet where 60 per cent of the world’s population live?
Asia has some of the most advanced internet economies, as well as some of the least developed countries with hardly any access to information or information infrastructure, neither analogue nor digital.
At OKCon, 26 participants from 11 Asian countries were present, including Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Russia. In this blog, I focus on selected East Asian and Pacific countries: New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea (North Asian and Pacific nations); and Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar (South-East Asian nations). Getting reliable data from all 49 Asian countries would require much more research, and these countries are grouped together in the Worldbank Knowledge Economy Index.
Despite being grouped together in the Worldbank Knowledge Economy Index (KEI), these countries have vastly different economic rankings. New Zealand achieved the highest Knowledge Economy score, closely followed by Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, whereas Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar score lowest in all KEI categories (ICT, education, economic incentive and institutional regime, innovation). Other key indicators relevant for Open Data development are the Corruption Perception Index (Transparency International), the World Internet Statistics and the Democracy Index (EIU) as a measure for general governance and functioning of government.
According to the 2012 World Internet Statistics, the overall internet penetration in Asia is only 27.5 per cent, but this still means the Asian continent is home to more users than any other, with over 1 billion. Internet penetration across the listed countries ranges from 1 per cent in Myanmar to 88 per cent in New Zealand; again with a wide gap between North and South East Asia (except for Singapore with 75 per cent).
South East Asia has often been described as “information black hole” in scholarly research on national information strategies, with many governments restricting or denying access to information to their citizens, often based on the assumption that government information by default is a secret. Earlier this month, the government of Vietnam enacted the “Decree 72” which limits the use of blogs and social media to “providing or exchanging personal information”, and prohibits them from being used to disseminate news or even information from government sites.
The law also bans content which could be “harmful” to national security or which opposes the government. This kind of restriction is based on the perception that governments own the information and can control its use, and that information-empowered citizens and businesses are potentially dangerous.
While North Asian countries, as well as New Zealand and Australia, mostly have Freedom of Information (FOI) laws in place (with the exception of Hong Kong); in South East Asia, FOI laws are more the exception than the rule. Even in the otherwise highly developed information economy of Singapore, there are many areas where the government argues that information needs to be kept confidential in the public interest, which explains why citizens cannot access and analyse data related to the size of assets in the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), a sovereign wealth fund owned by the Government of Singapore.
Sometimes laws are in place, but they are not fully applied. In Thailand, the country’s Official Information Act (OIA) was enacted in 1997, but “the concept of freedom of information is totally new to both Thai state officials and to the people. Thai society thus needs some time to learn more about the Information Law. State officials have to understand the procedures of law enforcement better so that they know how to provide information services and disclose information to meet public requests. Meanwhile, people should recognize their right to know and know how to utilize the Information Act as a means of access to state information.
Thai society should recognize information law as an essential part of establishing accountable and transparent government and as a crucial part of eventually building up civil society” (Quote by N. Seriak, Office of Official Information Commission). In 2000, the law was therefore amended to include strategic guidelines on how to promote and develop the acknowledgement of the Act’s content, its utilization, the mechanism and the procedures to utilize the Act to meet people’s right to access information. This example illustrates that the idea of open information also requires a new way of thinking about information, both for government officials and citizens.
Only 4 of the listed 15 countries are full democracies according to the EIU index – New Zealand, Australia, Japan and South Korea; they are also members of the OECD. The majority of countries in Asia fall into the categories of “flawed” democracies (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia), Singapore is a “hybrid system” and at the bottom are authoritarian governments such as Vietnam, Laos (lowest overall score) and Myanmar, which is now currently moving into another phase of political governance. In August this year, Myanmar officially ended censorship, thereby jumping up to 151st out of 179 countries in the World Press Freedom index.
There are few economic studies about the tangible and intangible value of open information, perhaps because the causality is not directly measurable, most of the time. On the other hand, it might be easier to analyse examples on the cost of non-open data, in hindsight of events where data was not available.
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