KAS holds talk about Corporate Social Responsibility in Vietnam

Story and photos by Chhay Sophal

Ho Chi Minh City (20 November 2014): Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) office in Tokyo has organised a regional conference this week on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) here for two days to urge all governments, businesses practitioners, stakeholders, communities as well as media around the world to think of a balance of economic, environmental and social imperatives with accountability and responsibility.

Paul Linnarz, KAS Regional Representative for Economic Policy and Resident Representative for Japan, said the conference is really crucial as it aims to discuss, analyze and uncover the chances and challenges of implementing CSR policies from various perspectives.

During the event, presentations, questions and discussion among speakers, panelists and participants from the region focused on Asian corporate sector’s stance towards CSR and the Asian media’s role in communicating CSR‐related issues to the public.

The discussion also heard the words of ‘lack of knowledge about CSR in all sectors’ repeatedly and speakers urged all businesses to have to balance between “Social Value” and “Business Value” i.e. they do not make business and trade for just benefits or profits but their work must be clean with ethics, accountability and responsibility towards sustainable development and human rights.

The two-day conference with the topic of “Asia’s Approach to Professional Corporate Social Responsibility: Chances and Challenges for Closer International Cooperation” from 19-20 November has been participated by regional senior journalists and representatives and experts from cooperates and business in multiple Asian countries.

It was the first time that KAS organised such important regional talk in cooperation with Vietnam’s VCCI in Ho Chi Minh city. KAS plans to hold the second conference in Singapore by April, next year.