Nov. 18 – Transparency International has just released their annual corruption index, and have ranked China as 79th and India 84th out of 180 countries. The evaluation of the extent of corruption is based on opinion from country experts – resident and non-residents – and business leaders. The corruption index measures perceived levels of public sector corruption in a country.
For the 2009 report, expert analysis was sourced from the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, Global Insight and the World Bank.
Resident business leaders whose opinions are reflected in the survey are IMD, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy and the World Economic Forum. New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland are the top five least corrupt nations. The Asia rankings are as follows:
5. Singapore
12. Hong Kong
17. Japan
37. Taiwan
39. South Korea
43. Macau
49. Bhutan
56. Malaysia
79. China
84. India (joint placing)
84. Thailand (joint placing)
97. Sri Lanka
111. Indonesia
120. Mongolia
120. Vietnam
130. Maldives
139. Bangladesh (joint placing)
139. Pakistan (joint placing)
139. Philippines (joint placing)
143. Nepal
146. Russia
158. Cambodia (joint placing)
158. Laos (joint placing)
178. Myanmar
Countries weighted with a score of less than three points were all considered to have endemic corruption at a rate that featured strongly in everyday life. That includes all countries below the 100th position. China scored 3.6 points and India 3.4, in contrast to Singapore with a score of 9.2 points.
Transparency International has found that there is a strong relation between corruption and poverty, which has jeopardized the global fight against poverty. The report mentioned that the relatively low scores by India could directly impact foreign direct investment in the country, while much of China’s corruption was government-influenced and centered on financial manipulation and theft of state assets by officials.
Transparency International is a global network including more than 90 locally established national chapters and chapters-in-formation. In Asia, the organization has offices in Bangkok, Colombo, Dhaka, Jakarta, Kathmandu, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur, Male’, Manila, New Delhi, Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo.
Food for thought.
At the top of the league, besides Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, there are the northern European countries, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Most of these countries have either have people with strong family values or the government provides good social security. The USA, second largest democracy, with quite a large disparity in wealth scraps into the Top 20 in 19th place.
It’s an interesting report in many ways, not least because India actually has an accredited Transparency International office, whereas in China it’s a tiny, non-Government sanctioned facility within Tsinghua University. I think that says something about Government desire to promote the issue. The Indian office website is here: http://www.transparencyindia.org. There is no Chinese one.