Turkey Ranks 53rd In Transparency Corruption Index

Turkey’s 2012 ranking was one notch below, 49, and it shared the same spot with Malaysia. The index measures the perception of corruption in the public sector. The survey of 177 countries is based on local and international experts' opinions of public sector corruption. Denmark and New Zealand tied for first place with scores of 91, followed by Finland, Sweden and Norway. Australia and Canada tied in ninth with scores of 81. Britain was 14th with 76 and the United States tied with Uruguay in 19th place with a score of 73.

Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia tied for last place with scores of 8. The survey, first conducted in 1995, draws on a variety of sources that capture perceptions of corruption, including World Bank and World Economic Forum assessments, the African Development Bank's governance ratings, and Transparency International's own Bribe Payers Survey.

Turkey’s western neighbor Greece, one of the countries hit hardest by the European financial crisis, ranked in 80th place with a score of 40 , though that was still an improvement of four points over last year's result. By contrast Spain, whose economy is also suffering, dropped six points to 59 points and placed 40th on the list.

According to a report, titled "Europe, Middle East, India and Africa Fraud Survey 2013," by the US-based financial consulting group Ernst & Young, ranked Turkey the ninth-least corrupt out of 36 countries -- including 20 EU member states -- in a survey of business leaders of 3,459 firms in those countries. The report released in May.

Cihan