On 13 January 2015, during a meeting with the Estonian delegation, Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili spoke about the steps made in the direction of creating a free business environment. He also noted that Georgia was promoted in international rankings. Mr Gharibashvili stated: “Georgia ranks 11^th

in the Business Bribery Risk Index, surpassing many developed countries.”

FactCheck

took interest in the accuracy of the Prime Minister’s statement and verified it.

As the survey showed, Georgia indeed ranks 11^th among 198 countries in the Business Bribery Risk Index published by Trace International and the RAND Corporation.

Rank	Country	Risk Score	Interactions with Government	Anti-Bribery Laws and Enforcement	Governmental and Civil Service Transparency	Capacity for Civil Society Oversight
1	Ireland	20	15	24	30	4
2	Canada	22	25	22	20	9
3	New Zealand	23	13	48	23	18
4	Hong Kong	23	4	51	27	30
5	Sweden	23	9	53	25	20
6	Finland	24	11	52	26	23
7	Singapore	26	1	54	37	35
8	Japan	26	33	17	6	10
9	Germany	27	28	31	33	1
10	USA	27	35	23	1	7
11	Georgia	27	17	24	19	39
12	Norway	28	21	52	32	16
13	Netherlands	29	20	55	29	21
14	France	29	32	38	27	14
15	Chile	30	33	30	20	25
16	Switzerland	31	22	52	37	19
17	South Korea	31	38	1	7	15

This Index is oriented on the business sector and provides trustworthy information concerning bribery risks associated with the business environment. Each country is assigned a score from 0 to 100. A high score corresponds with a high risk of bribery.

The survey has been carried out in four main directions: interactions with government, anti-bribery laws and enforcement, governmental and civil service transparency and capacity for civil society oversight. In the last of the four main directions, Georgia did worse as compared to the other directions and lagged behind many countries that ended up in lower positions in the overall ranking.

Georgia is ahead of many developed European countries including Norway, Switzerland, France and the United Kingdom. Georgia has a significantly better position as compared to these countries, especially in the second direction that concerns anti-bribery laws and enforcement. On the other hand, Georgia notably lags behind in terms of capacity for civil society oversight.

Considering the fact that the Index has been presented for the first time, it is impossible to monitor changes in the countries’ positions and define whether or not a position has improved as compared to previous years. However, the Business Bribery Risk Index is planned for an update in two years thereby rendering the comparison possible.

It is noteworthy that the image and country positions presented in this ranking slightly differ from other popular indices such as the Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International (TI). Georgia ended up in the 52^nd

position among 175 countries in the TI ranking. As Trace International explains, the reason for this is that it uses a different matrix than the others which significantly altered the overall score if any of the directions exceeded or lagged behind the others.

Conclusion As FactCheck determined, Georgia ranks 11^th

in the Business Bribery Risk Index by Trace International and the RAND Corporation. Despite other indices showing different results, Georgia surpasses many developed countries according to this survey.

Therefore, FactCheck concludes that Mr Gharibashvili’s statement: “Georgia ranks 11^th in the Business Bribery Risk Index, surpassing many developed countries,” is TRUE.