Taiwan ranks 19th among the world’s 28 main economic entities in the Bribe Payers Index (BPI), making no progress since 2008, Transparency International’s Taiwan branch said yesterday.
In the last BPI that Transparency published in 2008, Taiwan was ranked 14th among 24 of the world’s wealthiest and economically dominant countries.
This year, the BPI ranked 28 nations. It is based on research involving 3,016 business executives from companies in 30 countries. They were asked about the likelihood of offering bribes to foreign governments or companies when doing business abroad, Transparency’s Taiwan branch said.
sharing
Scores range from 0 to 10. Taiwan obtained a score of 7.5, sharing 19th place with India and Turkey.
First place in this year’s BPI was shared by the Netherlands and Switzerland, which each had a score of 8.8. Belgium (8.7) occupied third place in the index, while Russia ranked 28th (6.1), behind China (6.5). China was 27th. Japan occupied fourth place, Singapore eighth, Hong Kong 15th and South Korea 13th place.
National Chiao Tung University law professor Carol Lin (林志潔) told a press conference that the BPI research shows Taiwan has to improve its anti-corruption efforts in both the government and private sectors.
Taiwan has to clarify government-business relations, such as enactments of regulations on political donations and revolving-door provisions, Lin said. She added that in some cases, enterprises are blackmailed by government officials asking for money in the form of political donations. In other cases, she said, companies offer bribes to government officials to cultivate political relations.
Chen Chun-ming (陳俊明), a professor of public policy and management at Shih Hsin University, said a country’s political and business environment could affect the willingness of foreign investors to enter the country.
Chen urged the government to crack down on corruption and help domestic companies adopt effective anti-bribery programs.
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