Amalia Kostanyan, Chairwoman and Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Executive Director of Transparency International Anti-corruption Center presented 2009 Transparency International's (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) at a press conference hosted by Friday Club at 2 pm Yerevan time on November 17, 2009. Amalia Kostanyan covered CPI dynamics in the region for the last decade, while Varuzhan Hoktanyan addressed CPI 2009 trends in the world.

Overall results in the 2009 index are of great concern because corruption continues to lurk where opacity rules, where institutions still need strengthening and where governments have not implemented anti-corruption reforms. Bahrain, Greece, Iran, Malaysia, Malta and Slovakia declined in 2009, compared to 2008, while Bangladesh, Belarus, Guatemala, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Syria and Tonga improved their scores this year.

Among post-Soviet countries, the lead is again taken by Estonia, with a score of 6.6. As to our region, Georgia and Azerbaijan went up from 3.9 to 4.1 and 1.9 to 2.4, respectively, while Armenia dropped from 2.9 to 2.7. Other neighboring countries such as Iran and Turkey also fell down by 0.5 and 0.2, correspondingly. However, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran are still scored below 3.0, which is characteristic for countries with rampant corruption, whereas Georgia and Turkey have demonstrated a continuing progress since 2004 by reaching a level above 4.0.

For more information see the CPI 2009 or visit the website of Transparency International