Lithuania improves its standing in corruption rankings

In its 2015 corruption perception report, Transparency International gives Lithuania 61 points (out of 100), putting the Baltic state in the 32nd spot among 168 countries. Last year, Lithuania was ranked 39th among 174 countries.

Lithuania is seen as a little more corrupt than Estonia (23rd) and Poland (30th), but less so than Latvia (40th). Denmark remains to be seen as the world’s least corrupt country, while North Korea and Somalia are at the bottom of the list.

“We can see that, in the eyes of businesspeople, corruption is decreasing in Lithuania, corruption interferes less with doing business,” Transparency International Lithuania head Sergejus Muravjovas said. “Experts note, however, that politicians and public servants need to be more accountable and the adopted [anti-corruption] laws do not work. Therefore the tasks are clear. We must bring more transparency into lobbying and finally do something to essentially improve the quality of public services.”

Transparency International’s corruption perception index, ranking countries on a scale from 0 (utterly corrupt state) to 100 (perfectly transparent state), shows how they manage to control corruption in their public sectors. The index is based on surveying businesspeople and experts in different fields.