Singapore, Japan, HK least corrupt in Asia: Report

Singapore, Japan, HK least corrupt in Asia: Report

SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan are the least
corrupt economies in Asia, where the problem remains embedded
despite being a key trigger for the regional financial crisis in
1997, a report said.

Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Thailand, the Philippines and China
were perceived the most corrupt, with Malaysia, South Korea and
Taiwan falling just below the average, the Political and Economic
Risk Consultancy (PERC) said in its latest survey on corruption.

"One would have hoped that the economic crisis that hit the
Asian region in 1997 would have been a wakeup call to the problem
of corruption," PERC said.

"Unfortunately, our survey indicates that the problem, as
those working in the countries of the region perceive it, has not
really improved very much during the past four years," the Hong
Kong-based consultancy said.

In some countries, corruption even worsened compared to the
pre-crisis year.

Surveying more than 700 expatriate businessmen working in 12
Asian economies, PERC found that "the perception is clearly that
corruption remains a serious problem in most countries."

While graft exists in almost every country in the world, a
country can distinguish itself in the ability of its legal system
to fight the problem, the government's willingness to lead the
effort and the attitude of the local population toward
corruption, it said.

Grading countries from a scale of zero to 10, with zero being
the best grade possible and 10 the worst, PERC said tiny but
affluent Singapore maintained its squeaky-clean image with a
score of 0.83.

Singapore's grade beat the 1.77 mark for the United States and
1.72 for Australia -- two countries surveyed by PERC for purposes
of obtaining an outside benchmark on how corruption is perceived
as a problem in developed economies.

PERC noted that the fight against corruption in Singapore was
a long and sustained campaign beginning in 1959 when the People's
Action Party came to power through elections.

"It has never let up this campaign and the country's leaders
had the wisdom to apply the rules indiscriminately, i.e. to
themselves as well as to others, and in a very public manner," it
said.

Japan was in second place with a score of 2.50 and Hong Kong
came in third with a grade of 3.77, deteriorating from 2.49 last
year.

Hong Kong's political, economic and geographical links to
China, where corruption is much more rampant, remain a challenge
for the special administrative region, PERC said.

At the other extreme of the corruption scale was Vietnam, with
a grade of 9.75, followed by Indonesia with 9.50, India with
9.25, the Philippines with 9.0, Thailand with 8.55 and China with
7.88.

South Korea was graded at 7.00 while Malaysia and Taiwan both
got scores of 6.0.

Aside from Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, "the grades for
virtually all other countries covered by our survey are below
average, defined in our instructions as a score of five," it
said.

PERC grouped the Philippines and Thailand as "countries where
corruption is a serious problem but no one seems to be in a big
hurry to change the system."

In these countries, the people, especially the political
leaders, "seem to shrug off the problem as just the way things
are," and it takes a big scandal to get the authorities into
action, it said.

Referring to the toppling of corruption-tainted Philippine
president Joseph Estrada in January, PERC asked: "Estrada may be
gone, but how much in the Philippines has really changed?"

For Thailand, it noted how money played a prominent role in
the recent elections.

China and Vietnam were categorised as countries where
corruption levels are also high, but their governments are
willing to admit the extent of the problem.

PERC referred to a third group of countries, which it declined
to name, where governments were unwilling to admit that the
problem exists and take punitive actions against critics.