HSE University Anti-Corruption Portal
An Index of Corruption Risk for Business Released

TRACE International, a not-for-profit business association, has released the TRACE Matrix 2022, which is an annual global index of business corruption risk.

Business
Business

This year, the analysis coveres 194 countries. The TRACE Matrix* is a weighted score of risk that private companies can encounter in conducting their business activities in different countries. The potential risk is assessed for the four domains:

  • Business Interactions with Government – 40% of the total score;
  • Anti-Bribery Deterrence and Enforcement – 15% of the score;
  • Government and Civil Service Transparency – 22.5% of the score;
  • Capacity for Civil Society Oversight – 22.5% of the score.

The lower is the final score of a country, the safer and easier it is to conduct business under its jurisdiction.

In 2022, the top of the TRACE Matrix list is traditionally headed by Norway (score 4 out of 100), New Zealand (8), Sweden (9), Switzerland (10) and Denmark (11), where risks for businesses are most unlikely to be encountered. Interestingly, Denmark remained in the top five, but its performance has considerably worsened, as its score raised from 2 to 11 in a year.

As in the previous year, the countries in the bottom of the list are North Korea (score of 93 out of 100) and Turkmenistan (88). They are joined by Equatorial Guinea, (88) and Syria (88) that occupied higher positions in the ranking last year.

All in all, the TRACE International stresses that the performance of countries has considerably worsened over the year: 102 countries receive a score over 50, while in 2021 91 countries achieved this result, and the country at the top of the list got two points more than the leader of the 2021 Index.

The Russian Federation with the score of 61 is ranked 142nd in the TRACE Matrix 2022, losing eight points in the ranking if compared to 2021 and 15 if compared to 2020. In each domain, the country received the following score:

  • 57 in the domain “Business Interactions with Government”, nine points more than a year before;
  • 74 in the domain “Anti-bribery Deterrence and Enforcement”, two points more;
  • 59 in the domain “Government and Civil Service Transparency”, nine points more;
  • 61 in the domain “Capacity for Civil Society Oversight”, one point less than last year.

The reasons for poorer performance of Russia in the ranking are the same as in 2021, namely:

  • a low degree of government interaction with the business community;
  • a high expectation of bribes extortion by officials;
  • a low quality of anti-bribery dissuasion;
  • insufficient governmental transparency;
  • a low degree of media freedom;
  • a low degree of civil society engagement in the fight against corruption etc.

*The TRACE Matrix was developed by TRACE International in cooperation with the RAND Corporation, a US analytical centre, in 2014 and is released annually.

Tags
Corruption measurement
Civil society

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