UAE moves up in Transparency's list

The UAE has improved its ranking by five places over last year in Transparency International's 2009 annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).

The index, which was released yesterday, had the UAE at number 30 out of 180 countries. Qatar topped the GCC countries by coming in at 22, also an improvement from its 2008 ranking of 28.

Oman was at 39, Bahrain at 46, Kuwait at 66 and Saudi Arabia at 63.

The Corruption Perce-ptions Index scores countries on a scale of zero to 10, with zero indicating high levels of corruption and 10, low levels. The ranking is based on data from country experts and business leaders at 10 independent institutions, including the World Bank, Economist Intelligence Unit and World Economic Forum. For the third year running, the conflict-ridden East African nation of Somalia came in last, this time with a score of 1.1