Latest Corruption Index reveals few changes for Asia

3rd June 1996

Every business person in Asia knows that they will have to pay kick backs and pass money under the table at some time. They also know that the situation has improved markedly in the past decade. Transparency International's latest Corruption Index, developed in conjunction with Gottingen University, which attempts to rank countries according to perceived corruption in business was recently published with some interesting, but few substantive changes for Asian countries. The data reinforces that yes indeed, you are not imagining that you are passing your hard earned under the table and yes, a review of the historical data reveals that things have improved and there are much worse places to be working!

The research is biased on impressions of Western businessmen so it is inevitable that the concept of "corruption" would be biased towards the Western perception. This is acknowledged by the authors. The regular survey has also come under criticism in past years because of its "subjective" nature. However, producing an "objective" measure of corruption is well-nigh impossible. Our feeling is that the index correctly reflects our own experiences of corruption in the countries we do business in. However, enough on methodology, New Zealand tops the list as the most corrupt free nation of them all, follows by Scandinavian countries, Canada and Singapore comes in as the least corrupt nation in the region at 7th (down from third last year), and interestingly ahead of the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia improved their ranking. Rankings for Asia Pacific Countries and some major trading partners are listed below:

• New Zealand (1)
• Singapore (7)
• Australia (10)
• United Kingdom (12)
• USA (15)
• Japan (17)
• Hong Kong (18)
• Malaysia (26)
• South Korea (27)
• Taiwan (29)
• Thailand (37)
• Philippines (44)
• Indonesia (45)
• India (46)
• China (50)

Indo China, and several other Asian countries are excluded from the analysis. Full details are available here, including full methodology, historical data and index scores.