Business bribery risk: Bangladesh ranks 2nd in South Asia, despite progress
Norway, with a score of just five, represents the lowest business bribery risk globally
Despite improving its position by seven notches globally this year, Bangladesh now ranks second in terms of business bribery risk in South Asia – ahead of only Afghanistan – due to high expectation of bribes, poor transparency, and low media freedom, according to the 2023 Bribery Risk Matrix.
The country ranked 146th in the index released by the US-based business association TRACE, which measured business bribery risk in 194 countries. The country's position was 153rd last year.
Released on 14 November, the 2023 Bribery Risk Matrix indicated an improvement in Bangladesh's ranking, yet its overall score decreased by 3 points to 61 out of 100. A higher score signifies a higher risk of business bribery.
The matrix also mentioned low quality of anti-bribery enforcement and a low degree of civil society engagement as the driving factors behind Bangladesh's poor performance in terms of business bribery risk.
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Bangladesh now has the second highest commercial bribery risk in South Asia as Pakistan overtook the country this year climbing an impressive 29 notches to 129th position in the global rankings.
Last year, Bangladesh had outperformed Pakistan, while Afghanistan maintained its position at the bottom.
According to the index, in South Asia, the business bribery risk in Afghanistan and Bangladesh is "high", while the risk level of other countries in the region is "medium", except for Bhutan with a "low" risk.
Bhutan, with the region's lowest risk score of 40, secured 57th place. Nepal followed at 90th, the Maldives at 95th, and Sri Lanka at 108th. Afghanistan retained its position as the country with the highest business bribery risk in the region, with an overall score of 73 and a global ranking of 176th, followed by Bangladesh, Pakistan (129th), and India (122nd).
Norway, with a score of just five, represents the lowest business bribery risk globally, followed by New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark.
Meanwhile, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Syria, Equatorial Guinea, and Yemen were found to have the highest business bribery risk globally.
The global bribery risk index measures four domains: business interactions with government, anti-bribery deterrence and enforcement, government and civil service transparency, and capacity for civil society oversight, including the role of the media. The domain scores are derived from nine subdomains and each subdomain is composed of variables from publicly available data sets.
How Bangladesh performed
This year Bangladesh received a medium score of 60 in business interactions with the government, based on a medium degree of government interaction, a high expectation of bribes, and a medium regulatory burden.
The country scored poorly (66) in the second domain – anti-bribery deterrence and enforcement – based on a medium quality of anti-bribery dissuasion and a low quality of anti-bribery enforcement.
Bangladesh's poor score of 61 in government and civil service transparency, is based on medium governmental transparency and poor transparency of financial interests.
The South Asian nation also received a poor score of 60 in capacity for civil society oversight based on a low degree of media freedom, quality and civil society engagement.
Bangladesh's bribery risk level consistently high
Bangladesh has not been able to break the brackets of nations with "high-risk" levels of business bribery since 2014, when the first TRACE Bribery Matrix was released.
The only exception happened in 2016 when Bangladesh was ranked 183rd among 199 countries, becoming a country with a "very high" bribery risk.
