Taiwan has moved up one notch to 35th place in Transparency International’s (TI) 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) rankings, which were released on Wednesday.
In the latest report by the Germany-based organization of 175 countries and regions, Taiwan ranked fourth in East Asia, behind Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong.
Taiwan obtained a score of 61 out of 100 for the third consecutive year, but its ranking still improved by one notch, as it did the past two years.
Liao Ran, a senior executive of TI East Asia and South Asia, said that Taiwan has made progress in combating corruption because the media dares to expose irregularities and prosecutors are doing their jobs.
Ran, who helped establish TI-Taiwan in September 2002, has been monitoring the nation for years.
He said the CPIs of China and some Southeast Asian countries tend to be low because corruption at the senior official level is very serious and the media has been pressured or bribed to not report on malfeasance.
The CPI report said corruption tends to be more serious in economies experiencing rapid growth, noting that China and Turkey, whose scores fell markedly this year, have averaged better than 4 percent growth over the past four years.
China was ranked 100th, with a score of 36 (after finishing 80th last year), while Turkey ranked 63rd, with a score of 45 (it was 53rd last year.)
Denmark maintained its top ranking with a score of 92, followed by New Zealand (91), Finland (89), Sweden (87), Norway (86), Switzerland (86), Singapore (84), the Netherlands (83), Luxembourg (82) and Canada (81).
Those at the bottom of the rankings were mostly African or Central Asian countries. Two-thirds of the countries or regions in the survey had scores lower than 50, while Somalia and North Korea were tied at the bottom with a score of eight.
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