Asia Sentinel
29th Jan 2008
Philip Bowring
"Singapore has responded quickly to try to get back ahead of the curve. More transparency from the GIC was promised January 27 by its deputy chairman Tony Tan. In a rare interview Tan also offered Singapore's support for a a set of standards for SWFs which could help head off the raising of protectionist financial barriers. At the very least, Singapore hopes that by making the right noises it can at least be exempted from any future restrictions applied to bigger countries or those with more opaque management and objectives.
Most specifically Truman has devised a methodology for assessing the extent to which the funds meet four criteria: Structure, Governance, Behavior and Transparency and Accountability. His performance table has a maximum 25 points, 12 for transparency and accountability and the rest for structure, governance and behavior. At the top of the Truman table is New Zealand’s Superannuation Fund, with almost full marks of 24 points. It is closely followed by Norway, Timor-Leste, Alberta (Canada), Alaska (US), Australia, Azerbaijan and Chile. (The California Public Employees Retirement System (Calpers) rates 21.75 on the chart).
Meanwhile languishing almost at the bottom with 2.25 points is Singapore’s Government Investment Corporation (GIC), along with the funds of the United Arab Emirates (mainly Abu Dhabi) Brunei and Qatar. China is low on the scale too, in the company of the likes of Sudan, Iran and Venezuela. China is new to this business and with US$140 billion in recent injections from its foreign exchange reserves into the new China Investment Corporation fund, there are signs that the sheer size of its acquisitions – including of US financial institutions hoist on their own follies –is making a degree of transparency inevitable. "
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