January 25 (SeeNews) - Albania climbed five positions in Transparency International's global Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2016 survey published on Wednesday, sustaining a trend toward improvement.
The country, which recently received conditional recommendation to start EU accession negotiations, climbed to the 83rd position, on a par with Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 88th place in 2015.
The 2016 CPI survey comprises 176 countries and territories around the world. The index aggregates data from different sources, which provide perceptions of business people and country experts on corruption in the public sector.
In the case of Albania, the corruption watchdog used seven data sources: World Economic Forum EOS, Global Insight Country Risk Ratings, Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index, World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, PRS International Country Risk Guide, Economist Intelligence Unit Country Ratings, and Freedom House Nations in Transit Ratings.
Albania's improvement in CPI represents a steady trend, as in 2014 the country was in 110th place, while in the 2013 CPI survey it ranked 116th.
According to a recent EBRD survey, the gap between corruption perceptions of Albanian citizens and their actual corruption experiences is remarkably high.
While about 7% of the respondents think that irregular payments to public sector authorities are necessary to access public services, some 20% state that they or a member of their household actually made an unofficial payment to public officials in return for services in the previous calendar year, the EBRD said in the 2016 edition of its Life in Transition Survey. The survey covered 34 countries, mainly in transition, in central and eastern Europe as well as Turkey.