Progressing corporate governance disclosure in Egypt: Current status and action plan

This study examines the level of corporate governance disclosure in Egypt and explores the attitudes of Egyptian regulators, auditors, accountants, academics and company directors about the strategies needed to enhance CG disclosure. The measurement of disclosure is based on a checklist developed by the United Nations, which was gathered using a content analysis of financial statements and websites of a sample of Egyptian companies listed on Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX). Levels of CG disclosure are found to be very low, however, disclosure is high for items that are mandatory under the Egyptian Accounting Standards (EASs) that are based on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The failure of companies to disclose such information clearly shows some ineffectiveness and inadequacy in the regulatory framework in Egypt. Moreover, the phenomenon of non-compliance may also be attributed to the socio-economic factors in Egypt. Therefore, it is expected that Egyptian firms will take a long time to appraise the benefits of increased CG disclosure. Therefore, awareness building, education and training, incentives or disincentives to disclose including the nature of enforcement regimes are among possible policy recommendations based on interviews with Egyptian experts, but all carry costs as well as benefits. The findings provide a benchmark of performance against which future research can measure longitudinal changes after a further learning period.