Chinese, Indian and Russian companies bribe routinely to win overseas contracts, a global survey of executives claimed on Tuesday, highlighting fears that leading emerging economies are undermining international efforts to tackle corruption.
The bribe-payers’ index published by Transparency International, the anti-corruption group, ranks the three nations and Brazil in the bottom five of 22 countries surveyed.
The research highlights how intensifying global competition for natural resources and infrastructure projects threatens a “race to the bottom” between established western multinationals and leading companies from the new financial powers.
Huguette Labelle, Transparency International chair, called on all big exporting countries to join the landmark OECD anti-bribery treaty, which so far has been signed by 38 mainly rich nations.
Ms Labelle said Transparency International’s research “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.”
The Transparency International index ranked Russia in last place with a score of 5.9 out of 10, with India and China also both scoring below 7.
Belgium and Canada topped the rankings jointly with a score of 8.8, while all the other members of the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations except Italy scored more than 8.
The countries ranked in the index account for about three-quarters of world foreign direct investment outflows and exports of goods and services. The survey – carried out by Gallup International, the polling organisation – is based on the perceptions of 2,742 business executives from 26 countries, including six in Africa, four in Central and South America, and eight in Asia.
The research says the most corrupt sectors among 19 surveyed are construction, real estate, energy, heavy manufacturing and mining, while the cleanest are information technology, fisheries and banking.
Many anti-corruption activists warn that the expansion of companies from emerging economic powers into resource-rich but often poorly governed countries in Africa and elsewhere could prolong and extend a tradition of bribery already established by western multinationals.
The OECD has launched a partnership with the African Development Bank to fight bribery on the continent, while Chinese officials will attend a meeting of the OECD’s anti-bribery working group this week .
Another TI index published in September accused the world’s wealthiest countries of failing to live up to their commitments to fight corruption, highlighting fears that only the US and a few other nations were serious about tackling graft by their businesses.
TI’s surveys are widely seen as useful yardsticks on corruption, although their basis on business executives’ perceptions rather than more objective measures means they are susceptible to individual prejudices.
Funders of the latest index include the German and Norwegian development agencies and Ernst & Young, the international accounting firm.
