Public Sector Corruption in Asia

2007 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index indicates the degree of public sector corruption as perceived by business people and country analysts. Transparency International (http://www.transparency.org), a non-profit organization based in Germany, commissioned Prof. Dr J. Graf Lambsdorff of the University of Passau to produce the CPI table. A country or territory’s CPI Score indicates the degree of public sector corruption as perceived by business people and country analysts, and ranges between 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt).

Perceptions of Corruption in Asia - 2007

In 2007, Singapore continued to be preceived as having the least corrupt public sector among Asian nations. Out of 179 Nations, Singapore was ranked 4th (one step less corrupt from a ranking of 5th in 2006; Hongkong at 14 is up from 15 in the previous year. China and India, the two largest countries in Asia, dropped in rank from both being tied at 70 in 2006 down to a ranking of 72 in 2007. Japan remained at rank 17 and Malaysia and South Korea were tied in 2007 (Malaysia ranked 44 and South Korea 42 in 2006). Thailand, even through ranked better than neighboring countries at 63 in 2006 (compared to Vietnam and Laos at 111, Philippines at 121 and Indonesia at 130 in Yr. 2006, made a drop down to 84 in 2007.) Other SE Asia countries also took a dive: Laos dropped its rank to 168, while Vietnam is at 123 and Cambodia is at 162. The Philippines and Indonesia were ranked 131 and 143 respectively and continued to be perceived as the most corrupt major countries in Asia.

Country Rank	Country/Territory	CPI Score 2007	Conficence Intervals*	Surveys Used**
4	Singapore	9.3	9.0-9.5	9
14	Hong Kong	8.3	7.6-8.8	8
17	Japan	7.5	7.1-8.0	8
43	Malaysia	5.1	4.5-5.7	9
43	South Korea	5.1	4.7-5.5	9
72	China	3.5	3.0-4.2	9
72	India	3.5	3.3-3.7	10
84	Thailand	3.3	2.9-3.7	9
123	Vietnam	2.6	2.4-2.9	9
131	Philippines	2.5	2.3-2.7	9
143	Indonesia	2.3	2.1-2.4	11
162	Cambodia	2.0	1.8-2.1	7
168	Laos	1.9	1.7-2.2	6

Explanatory notes:

*Confidence range provides a range of possible values of the CPI score. This reflects how a country's score may vary, depending on measurement precision. Nominally, with 5 percent probability the score is above this range and with another 5 percent it is below. However, particularly when only few sources are available, an
unbiased estimate of the mean coverage probability is lower than the nominal value of 90%.

**Surveys used refers to the number of surveys that assessed a country's performance. 14 surveys and expert assessments were used and at least 3 were required for a country to be included in the CPI.