World Bank Enterprise Surveys: Georgia is in top 10 countries in terms of low bribery prevalence

The World Bank has published a new Enterprise Surveys in which over 164,000 of companies from 144 countries were involved and Georgia was ranked in the top 10 countries in terms of low bribery prevalence.

In Georgia, bribery incidence, which is the percent of firms experiencing at least one bribe payment request, amounted to 1.3 per cent, while this indicator reaches 10 per cent. 

In addition, bribery depth, which is defined as the per cent of public transactions in which a gift or informal payment was requested, amounted to 0.6 per cent in Georgia.

In 2008, bribery incidence amounted to 9.8 per cent, while bribery depth was 8.7 per cent. As for 2013, the bribery incidence level was 1.4 per cent, while bribery depth level was 0.9 per cent.

The result achieved by Georgia in the World Bank Enterprise Surveys has made the country proud and me personally as the head of the tax authority,” said Finance Minister Ivane Matchavariani when commenting the result Georgia attained in the ranking.

The percent of firms in Georgia that said they would expect to have to give a ‘gift’ in order to receive an operating license amounted to zero.

The percent of firms that say they would expect to give ‘gifts’ during meetings with tax officials amounted to 1 per cent, while the percent of firms expecting to have to give gifts to secure government contracts amounted to 1.4 per cent. 

The most significant and interesting thing is that in areas that are traditionally high-risk in terms of corruption, such as issuing permits, issuing licenses, as well as dealing with tax authorities, this figure is particularly low here,” he noted.

In Georgia, business owners and top managers of 581 firms were interviewed for the study from March 2019 through January 2020.

The Enterprise Survey is a firm-level survey of a representative sample of an economy’s private sector, says the World Bank. The surveys cover a broad range of business environment topics including access to finance, corruption, infrastructure, crime, competition, and performance measures. 

The Enterprise Surveys implemented in European and Central Asian countries are also known as Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Surveys (BEEPS) and are jointly conducted by the World Bank Group, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the European Commission (EC).