First plenary session of the B20 Taskforce on improving Transparency and Anti-corruption 17.01.2013

First plenary session of the B20 Taskforce on improving Transparency and Anti-corruption



More than 50 business leaders, regulators and anticorruption experts from companies all over the world gathered together in Moscow on 17th January to discuss how business and governments can work together to reduce corruption.

They were participating in the first plenary session of the B20 Taskforce on improving Transparency and Anti-corruption.

The B20 is the annual meeting of business leaders which takes place alongside the G20. This year the G20 Summit will be held in St. Petersburg in September, and the B20 is organised under the leadership of RSPP, the Russian Union of Entrepreneurs. Companies from all the G20 countries are invited to be part of the B20, which will culminate in a recommendation from business to the heads of state at the G20 summit.

The B20 process is organised into 7 distinct Task Forces, of which one focuses on anti-corruption, one of the key global challenges identified by the G20. The Task Force meeting was chaired by Task Force Chairman, Andrey Bougrov, Senior Managing Director of Interros. Co‐chairman, Futhi Mtoba, President of Business Unity South Africa, and Michele de Rosa, representative of co‐chairman Giuseppe Recchi, Chairman of ENI SpA, were both in attendance. The Task Force’s organising committee is being managed jointly by Interros and IBLF.

The participants discussed the main aims and objectives of the Task Force’s work, and the priority themes. In addition to drafting business’s recommendations to the G20 governments’ leaders, the Task Force set itself some additional goals: to involve more companies from the BRICS countries; to raise awareness of the B20 and to ensure a smooth transition to the Presidency of Australia in 2014.

The Task Force agreed its priority themes: cleaning up public procurement, promoting Collective Action initiatives, building capacity in the value chain; and strengthening the legislative and regulatory framework. For the first time, the Task Force will also have a special Work stream to promote best practices in Russia.

Andrei Bougrov, in his conclusions, said “We can’t be satisfied with just producing documents and making recommendations – business, working closely with government, should have the more ambitious goal of achieving measurable impact on the ground, in G20 countries…and beyond.”

Immediately following the Plenary there was a special session of the Russia Work stream, which was chaired by Boris Tkachenko, Head of IBLF Russia. Andrei Sharonov, the First Deputy Mayor of Moscow, and Arjan de Jongste, the CEO of Philips in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Central Asia, shared their experience of participating in the Industrial Companies Working Group which has been advising Moscow Government on how to improve its public procurement processes.

The highlight of the event, was a business leaders dinner which was addressed by Angel Gurria, Secretary-General of the OECD, and attended by Alexander Shokhin, President of RSPP, and Andrei Sharonov, First Deputy Mayor of Moscow.


Browse photos from the event.

Возврат к списку