JAMAICA’S improvement from number 99 to 87th place on the 2010 Corruption Perception Index is being hailed as a positive shift that could put the country in a position to attract investors.

“The importance of this of course lies in investors attention (investors look to see which are the countries that are improving on the charts),” said Professor Trevor Munroe, director of the National Action Forum (NAF), which presented the index report locally during a press briefing at the University of the West Indies (UWI) yesterday afternoon.

The report was released hours earlier by the German-based organisation Transparency International.

“Jamaica’s improvement is significant against the backdrop of three successive years of decline and in the context of continued fall in other global rankings,” said Munroe.

The decline in the various indices referred to by Munroe are the Human Development Index in which the island registered a decline in ranking from 92 to 100 between 2007 and 2009; the Ease of Doing Business Index, which saw a fall from 67 to 75 place (2009 to 2010); and the Environmental Performance from 54 in 2008 to 89 place this year.

“If we had a further decline it would be a cause for concern, not just for us here in Jamaica, but friends of Jamaica elsewhere along with the investing community,” said Munroe. He, however, said there was no study to show whether or not foreign investment had been hampered by Jamaica’s poor ranking in previous years.

Yesterday’s release showed Jamaica improving 12 places on the Corruption Perception Index from the 99th place the Caribbean nation occupied last year. The ranking is three places shy of Jamaica’s best — 84th place two years ago.

Jamaica, Bhutan, Chile, Ecuador, Gambia, Haiti, Qatar, Kuwait and Macedonia were among the countries that had the biggest improvement. The island scored the same as India, Albania and Liberia at 3.3.

During yesterday’s press briefing, Munroe said that concerted efforts by the Government, public authorities and the private sector assisted in the improved ranking of the island.

Munroe singled out, among others, the Jamaica Constabulary Force for its booting of corrupt cops, the work of the Office of the Contractor General and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in battling corruption, and the tax administration, department whose work aided in the gain. Figuring prominently in the mix was the extradition of former Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, said Munroe.

According to the report, Somalia is the most corrupt country in the world, followed by Afghanistan, Myanmar and Iraq. The annual report found that Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore tied for first place as the world’s least corrupt nations. In the Americas, Canada was ranked as the least corrupt but was number six on the overall ranking; Barbados second, 17th overall; Chile third, and placing 21st on the world ranking; while the United States was placed at fourth, with a world ranking of 22 on the index. In addition to Barbados, Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago were the other English-speaking Caribbean countries that had a better showing than Jamaica. Dominica was placed at number 44 on the world ranking and Trinidad at 73.

Transparency International found that some countries that were especially hard hit by the fallout of the global financial crisis became more corrupt during the last year. Among those were Greece and Italy, as well as the United States, which fell from number 19 last year to 22 this year.

Of the 178 countries surveyed, nearly three quarters fell below an index score of five on a scale where zero is the most corrupt and 10 is the least. Transparency International’s corruption index draws on 13 different surveys of business people and governance experts conducted between January 2009 and September 2010.