By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Korean companies have bad reputation due to their bribery in overseas business, as Korea was listed as 14th transparent among 22 countries, according to an anti-corruption NGO's survey.
The Transparency International (TI) released Bribery Payers Index (BPI), which ranks the propensity of companies from 22 top exporting countries to bribe abroad. The index was also based on interviews of 2,742 business executives in 26 countries.
The surveyed people said Korean firms are likely to bribe local public officials of the countries in doing business, giving 7.5 scores out of 10. A score of 10 means no corruption, while 0 means highly corrupt.
Korea ranked 14th, together with South Africa and Taiwan. When categorizing the 22 nations into four groups according to the likelihood of bribery, Korea was included in the third transparent group, along with Israel, Hong Kong, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa and Malaysia.
``Korean firms also had double standard in ethics, using bribes as their business method more often in less developed countries than developed nations,'' an official of TI Korea said.
Since 1999 when Korea ranked 18th among 19 countries with 3.4 points, the country has been at the lower rankings _ 18th among 21 nations with 3.9 scores in 2002 and 21st among 30 countries with 5.8 points in 2006.
The TI report also showed that 92 percent of Korean businesspeople were not aware of OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, which encourages sanctions against bribery in international business transactions _ an indication that the international convention does not have an influence on Koreans' overseas business.
``Foreign executives were also critical of Korean government's anti-corruption drives, as 69 percent said the drives are not effective while only 12 percent said they are,'' the official said.
Belgium and Canada topped the transparency rank, obtaining 8.8 points, followed by the Netherlands and Switzerland, both 8.7 points. Companies in developing nations were found to be likely to bribe in their overseas business _ bottom five nations were Russia with 5.9 scores, China with 6.5, Mexico with 6.6, India with 6.8 and Brazil with 7.4.
In a separate index made by TI in September, Korea's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) this year rose slightly, ranking 40th among 180 countries from 43rd a year ago. CPI indicates the degree of public sector corruption as perceived by business people and country analysts. Korea scored 5.6 out of 10.