Verelq.am: Armenia’s position in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2015 has undergone almost no changes. Notwithstanding the republic’s anti-corruption strategy and creation of numerous structures, Armenia has experienced almost no progress over the past 13 years, Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Executive Director of the Transparency International Anti-corruption Center, said at a news conference.

He said Armenia is ranked 95th, scoring 35. Armenia shares this rank with Mali, the Philippines and Mexico. In the Corruption Perceptions Index a country’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). As compared to the previous year, Armenia’s score has dropped by two points. The top three (least corrupt) countries are Denmark (91), Finland (90) and Sweden (89), with the last two (most corrupt) countries being North Korea (8) and Somalia (8).

Armenia’s neighbors – Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iran – are ranked 48th (scoring 52), 66th (scoring 42), 119th (scoring 29) and 130th (scoring 27), respectively. Russia, like Azerbaijan, is ranked 119th (scoring 29).

As regards the methodology, Hoktanyan pointed out that Transparency International refers to three sources (5 sources in the case of Armenia) when preparing the table and calculating the index. The matter, in particular, concerns the reports of authoritative international organizations. Hoktanyan recalled that the Corruption Perceptions Index is based on expert opinions of public sector corruption.

He explains the decline of Armenia’s score with the fact that over the previous years Transparency International referred to 6 sources, but this time it did not use the data of the World Bank.

“The World Bank’s data have always been favorable for Armenia. We deducted the WB data from the figures of the past 2-3 years and got the same score – 35 points,” he said.