London - Companies based in emerging markets are more likely
to pay bribes in order to win contracts abroad, anti-corruption
watchdog Transparency International said Tuesday.
It published a survey of senior executives which rated companies in
Russia, China and India as the most likely to engage in bribery when
conducting business overseas.
Belgium and Canadian firms were considered the least likely to pay
bribes, according to the study.
Transparency International canvassed 2,742 senior business
executives from 26 industrialized and developing companies about the
tendency to pay bribes abroad.
The results were used to compile a Bribe Payers Index (BPI), which
ranked 22 of the world's leading importing and exporting countries on
a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 representing the cleanest countries.
Bottom of the list was Russia, with a score of 5.9, followed by
China on 6.5, Mexico on 6.6 and India on 6.8. Italy was the worst-
ranked European country on 7.4.
Belgium and Canada jointly topped the list on 8.8, followed by the
Netherlands and Switzerland on 8.7 and Germany, Japan and Britain, all
on 8.6.
'The BPI provides evidence that a number of companies from major
exporting countries still use bribery to win business abroad, despite
awareness of its damaging impact on corporate reputations and ordinary
communities,' said Transparency International chairwoman Huguette
Labelle.
'The inequity and injustice that corruption causes makes it vital
for governments to redouble their efforts to enforce existing laws and
regulations on foreign bribery and for companies to adopt effective
anti-bribery programmes,' she said.
The index showed public works and construction companies to be the
most corruption-prone when dealing with the public sector, and most
likely to exert undue influence on the policies, decisions and
practices of governments, Transparency International said.
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