BUSINESS

LONDON - Russian companies are considered the most likely to engage in bribery abroad according to the results of a survey of senior business executives released by Transparency International on Tuesday.

The survey asked 2,742 executives from 26 countries about the likelihood of foreign companies from nations where they have dealings to pay bribes when operating in the executives' home countries.

Transparency International then used the executives' responses to rank 22 of the world's largest countries on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 indicating a country whose companies are the least prone to bribery. Each country's ranking was determined by answers from between 114 and 718 executives, depending on the number of executives that had experience of each country.

Belgium and Canada were rated the "most honest" countries in the Bribe Payer Index (BPI) with 8.8 points out a maximum of 10. Russia had 5.9 points, while the other developing BRIC countries (Brazil, India and China) also scored poorly.

The most corrupt sectors were building, real estate, the oil and gas industry and the mining industry.

Russia, India and China are among the counties which have not signed the Organisation for Eco­nomic Co-operation and Deve­lopment's convention against bribery.

"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 Chair, Huguette Labelle, in a press release.

"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. In this spirit, all major exporting countries should commit to the provisions of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention," she added.

Juanita Riano, who co-authored Transparency International's report on the survey, said that the most surprising finding was the relatively small variation in scores between the top and bottom ranking countries.

"Even the top performers aren't scoring that well," she told the Associated Press. "There is a problem across all countries."

The survey was carried out by Gal­lup International for Transparency International between August 5 and October 29.  ■

5 Best

1 Belgium 8.8

1 Canada 8.8

3 Netherlands 8.7

3 Switzerland 8.7

5= Germany 8.6

5= Japan 8.6

5= United Kingdom 8.6

5 worst

1 Russia 5.9

2 China 6.5

3 Mexico 6.6

4 India 6.8

5= Brazil 7.4

5= Italy 7.4

AP, RIA Novosti