Timor-Leste continued the trend of recent years in the fight against corruption, climbing to 70th place (last year it ranked 77th) in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), drawn up by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Transparency International, by reaching 43 points, according to the report released on January 30th.
Over the last five years, Timor-Leste has risen seven positions in the CPI, and standing out even more in the last 11 years, with a total increase of ten positions. This result means that the country remains in the top half of the least corrupt countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
Only Singapore (5th) and Malaysia (57th) among the ASEAN countries are above Timor-Leste. Among the nine CPLP member countries, only Cape Verde (30th), Portugal (35th) and São Tomé and Príncipe (67th) are positioned above Timor-Leste.
The CPI is the oldest and most comprehensive corruption measurement tool in the world, analysing the levels of corruption in the public sector of 180 countries and territories, scoring them from 0 (perceived as very corrupt) to 100 (very transparent), based on the perception of experts and business executives about the levels of corruption in the public sector.