Mistrust of Corporations Runs Deep in Asia
Of the 800 people polled in Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, 72 percent believed "recent events have caused a crisis of confidence and trust in the way we do business" in the region, said U.S.-based public relations firm Golin/Harris which carried out the survey between July and September.
"This is more than just a case of when 'America sneezes, Asia catches a cold'," said Jeff Schultz, the firm's managing director for Southeast Asia.
"Because our economic lives and livelihoods are so interconnected globally, the decline of confidence in one region has dramatic ramifications in all others," he said.
The level of mistrust was most acute in Japan where 85 percent said Asian businesses were in crisis, followed by 71 percent in Taiwan, 68 percent in Hong Kong and 67 percent in Singapore, AFP reported.
Respondents were asked to rate specific sectors based on a "trust index," ranging from zero to plus 100, the highest level of trust, and zero to minus 100, the lowest.
Property developers were the least trusted in the region, garnering a rating of minus 48 followed by health and beauty products (minus 36), media companies (minus 32), securities/investment banks (minus 28) and construction companies (minus 27).
Electric power businesses topped the confidence vote with a score of plus 54, with computer companies in second place with a rating of plus 51.
They are followed by telecommunications (plus 47), pharmaceuticals (plus 37) and automotive firms (plus 34). Golin/Harris said the least trusted businesses in Asia "tend to be sectors that have negatively affected the collective economic and social well being as well as individual welfare." In contrast, industries trusted by Asians "tend to be sectors that are critical to national economic and social well being, in many cases the trusted foundation of the Asian industrial and commercial infrastructure."