CAF, OECD y FONAFE hold an experiences exchange meeting on government policies in public enterprises to improve governance in the region

(Lima, October 11, 2012). - CAF- Development Bank of Latin America - and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), supported by the Government of Spain and FONAFE, hosted the Second Meeting for the Latin American Network of Public Enterprises Corporate Governance in Lima, in an effort to promote the exchange of experiences and knowledge about public enterprises and government policies to improve governance in the region.

Said activity was inaugurated by Laura Calderon Rejgo, Peru's Deputy Finance Minister; Miguel Mora Hidalgo, a member of the Corporate Governance Committee of the OECD, the senior adviser for the Spain's Economy and Competitiveness Ministry, the CAF´s director representative in Peru, Eleonora Silva Pardo, and the executive director from the Public Enterprise Activity Financing National Fund (FONAFE, by its Spanish acronym) Titto Ayona Almora.

Peru´s Deputy Finance Minister emphasized that good corporate governance practices improve the competitiveness of public enterprises, facilitating their access to capital markets, and are a discussion point becoming increasingly relevant in any business activity.

She emphasized that the good corporate governance practices bring opportunities for interaction between the public and private sector, and in turn offer high quality services, which strengthens the credibility of the State.

"For all the above reasons, it is important to discuss more ways to further improve the efficient, effective and transparent public enterprises management, in competency framework for the competition and promotion of private investments," underlined Calderon Rejgo.

In turn, Mora Hidalgo mentioned that the Spanish government has promoted good governance projects in Latin America and has participated in the formation and development of the corporate governance network in public enterprises of fraternal countries in this geographical region.

"The celebration of this second meeting, which counts on the participation 15 countries representatives’, shows remarkable progress in the development of this network and indicates the importance being given to the corporate governance issue in the region," he said.

"In accordance with our commitment to sustainable development and regional integration, we have been promoting a program to encourage corporate governance best practices at the regional level. In that regard, CAF is very keen to open up spaces for analysis and discussion, besides being familiar with the current state of practice and exposing success stories of public enterprises in Latin America. Known experiences in other continents are disseminated to assess which principles on Corporate Governance can make public enterprises management more effective and transparent in the region,” said Eleonora Silva Pardo.

Meanwhile, Almora Ayona said the FONAFE Corporation is proud to share the progress made in the last years in terms of Good Corporate Governance, as well as being able to expose the challenges and tasks ahead.

"We recognize that the FONAFE Corporation challenge is important to the country, because we believe that investment, both private and public, is essential in ensuring development. In this course of ideas, the global trends related to the management of scarce natural resources and public enterprises are favored from the perspective of the State -Owner. Thus, the implementation of Good Corporate Governance models is essential to our management," she concluded.

Over four work sessions, the participants analyzed the governance landscape in Latin America, achievements of effective board in Latin America and how really implement functioning reforms and their functioning, as well as shared their governance experiences of in Europe and Asia Pacific.

The Latin American Network of Public Enterprises Corporate Governance serves as a forum to learn from the experience of a number of governments and other institutions in order to share knowledge on policies, institutional frameworks and best practices to support public enterprises corporate governance improvements in the region.

More than 120 representatives from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Spain, United States, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, as well as Norway, Turkey and a special guest from New Zealand, attended the forum whose conclusions will be available shortly on the website. http://gc.caf.com/