The UAE maintained its ranking as the second most transparent and least corrupt country in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, according to Transparency International.
The UAE’s rating improved globally this year and it has been ranked among the top 30 most transparent countries, TI’s Corruption Perception Index 2010 showed.
The country moved up two positions to 28th worldwide against 30th last year, above major countries such as Italy, Spain, South Korea, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Portugal.
Qatar maintained its top position in the Mena region and also improved its global ranking to 19th against 22nd last year. The UAE is followed by Oman in the Gulf.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are ranked fifth, sixth and eighth, respectively. Iraq has been placed at bottom of the corruption index in the region.
Jointly heading the index - in which a score of 10 indicates a country with the highest standards, and 0 as highly corrupt - were Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore with 9.3.
The US dropped out of the top 20 in a global league table of least corrupt nations, tarnished by financial scandals and the influence of money in politics. The US fell to 22nd from 19th last year, with its Corruption Perceptions Index score dropping to 7.1 from 7.5 in the 178-nation index, which is based on independent surveys on corruption.
At the bottom is Somalia with a score of 1.1, slightly trailing Myanmar and Afghanistan at 1.4 and Iraq at 1.5.
The 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index showed that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries in the index score below five. These results indicate a serious corruption problem.