From the Panama Papers: “Information transparency is still far away for underdeveloped countries”

ServicePanama PapersThe Panama Papers scandal continues to heat up as more politicians resign, investigators are still investigating, and the public remains stunned by the scale of the scandal. Immediately after the shocking “bombshell” broke, world leaders agreed to see the Panama Papers as a wake-up call about the integrity of the global financial system and governance.

Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh - Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities - Vietnam National University, Hanoi commented: "In the recent Panama Papers case, the countries of the European Union (EU) acted very quickly because they are countries with economies of the same level of development, with close connections, so policies and solutions were also quickly put forward. Meanwhile, in developing or less developed countries, they are more reserved in this issue due to their level, management capacity, and culture. Therefore, information transparency seems to be a distant thing for less developed countries."

Assoc.Prof.Dr. Pham Quang Minh – Rector of University of Social Sciences and Humanities – Vietnam National University, Hanoi

In addition, according to Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh, the "bomb" called the Panama Papers also has a huge impact on the general life of people around the world. He said: "The anger and dissatisfaction of people in many countries have appeared very clearly after the incident. In particular, in Iceland, although this is a small country, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest, resulting in the resignation of the Prime Minister of Iceland. From that, we see that today, leadership in countries requires transparency, responsibility, accountability and, importantly, good governance, bringing benefits to the people."

Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh also assessed that the Panama Papers incident is an important reason why the forecast for the world economy in 2016 has become gloomy. He affirmed: "The incident is the reason why the world economy certainly has not escaped the crisis that has lasted for more than 10 years. The world economy was affected by the financial crisis from 2008 - 2009. Although there have been many efforts to restore the economy, there are too many factors and events affecting it. In particular, the Panama Papers incident seems to have caused the world economy to return to the stage of the previous crisis."

To listen to the discussion of Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh about the Panama Papers in the program World Panorama, please watch the video below: