Switzerland ranked third-least corrupt country in index

The ranking only refers to corruption in the public sector. Keystone

The country has moved up two places in Transparency International’s (TI) 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking joint third alongside Finland and Norway.

The global watchdog group’s annual indexExternal link, published on Wednesday, found that only New Zealand and Denmark are perceived as being less corrupt than Switzerland.

Despite dropping one percentile point overall, the Alpine nation jumped from fifth to third in a study that analyses perceptions by business people and country experts of the level of corruption in the public sector.

+ Find out more about Switzerland’s place in last year’s ranking

TI Switzerland director, Martin Hilti, said in a statement to the Swiss News Agency that the ranking did not necessarily mean that the country is free of corruption.

In fact, he said, corruption was a “regular occurrence” in Switzerland, particularly in the private sector, which was not included in the statistics.

The report also did not take into consideration that Swiss companies might be involved in corrupt activity abroad, Hilti said.

Corruption continues to be a global problem and the majority of countries are moving too slowly in their efforts to combat it, the Berlin-based NGO said.