Denmark has regained its position as the country with the perceived lowest corruption in the world, reports The Local.
The 2018 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), released by anti-corruption campaign group Transparency International on Tuesday, ranks perceptions of corruption levels amongst officials and authorities in different countries.
The index, which ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people, uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
In the 2017 list, Denmark lost its no. 1 spot on the list after several years at the top, with New Zealand achieving a better points score.
But New Zealand fared slightly worse in 2018’s ranking with 87 points compared to 89 previously, giving Denmark first place with an unchanged score of 88, writes thelocal.dk.
The Faroe Islands and Greenland, which are both part of the Kingdom of Denmark, are not included in the ranking.
What is more, the ranking does not clarify whether Denmark should be understood as “Denmark without the Faroe Islands and Greenland” or “Denmark as in the Kingdom of Denmark as a whole”.
Faroe Islanders elect two members to represent the Faroe Islands at the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen. The same applies to Greenlanders.
As for the Faroe Islands, the US Department of State points out that the “Islands boast a well-developed physical and telecommunications infrastructure and have well-established political, legal, and social structures.”
The top ten countries with the perceived lowest corruption in the world:
Denmark – 88 points
New Zealand – 87 points
Finland – 85 points
Singapore – 85 points
Sweden – 85 points
Switzerland – 85 points
Norway – 84 points
Holland – 82 points
Canada – 81 points
Luxembourg – 81 points