Moldova in 2013 scored a Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of 35 points and was placed 102nd of 177 countries in the rankings released by Transparency International. In 2012, Moldova ranked 94th of 178 countries, IPN reports.

The Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be. A country or territory’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 - 100, where 0 means that a country is perceived as highly corrupt and 100 means it is perceived as very clean.

According to a press release of Transparency International Moldova, eight sources were used to determine the CPI 2013 of Moldova. The results of the monitoring showed that a number of loud cases were started against officials for acts of corruption in Moldova in 2013. But, as they were political in character and weren’t finished, the population didn’t perceive them as an accomplishment in the fight against corruption.

Corruption in the public sector, especially in justice and police, and in the political parties remains one of the major challenges in the world. No country has a perfect score in the CPI 2013, and two-thirds of countries score below 50. This indicates a serious, worldwide corruption problem.

The average CPI 2013 for the EU member states is 63 points, for the United States - 73 points, while for the CIS - 26 points. Among the countries whose CPI improved compared with last year are Estonia, Lithuania, and Croatia. On the opposite pole there are Syria, Spain, Slovenia, Australia, and Iceland. The rankings are topped by Denmark and New Zealand with equal scores of 91. Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia rank last with only 8 points each.