The 2009 Global Corruption Barometer, a global public opinion survey released today by Transparency International (TI), found that over half (54%) of those polled believe that the private sector uses bribes to influence public policy, laws and regulations or, in other words, captures the state. As illustrated in Figure 1, this perception is particularly widespread in the Newly Independent States (NIS) : more than 70% of the surveyed pointed to the existence of state capture in their countries.

In roughly a fifth of the countries and territories surveyed, including countries home to some of the world's major financial centres, such as Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Switzerland, respondents identified the private sector as the most corrupt institution (see Table 1). The Barometer also showed that half of respondents are willing to actively support clean business (see Table 2). Armenia is placed in a group of countries, where 46-64% of the interviewed are ready to pay more to buy from corruption-free companies.

The survey, with more than 73,000 respondents from 69 countries and territories around the world was conducted by Gallup International as a part of Voice of the People Survey in 50 countries and by other polling organizations in 19 countries between October 2008 and February 2009. In Armenia it was carried out by the Georgian Opinion Research Business International organization for 1,000 respondents in the period from January 25 till February 5, 2009 through face-to-face interviews.

For details see Press Release or visit Transparency International