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.