The Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) expressed grave concern as most trade and investment partner countries of Bangladesh were systematically unable to take actions against bribery in international trade.
They also alerted the government and urged it to be vigilant and take all preventive measures against corruption deals in foreign trade and investment.
Referring to a report titled "Exporting Corruption 2022: Assessing Enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention", released by the Berlin-based TI Secretariat on October 11, they called upon the countries to address weaknesses in their relevant laws and ensure stringent enforcement.
The biennial report assessed the performance of 47 leading global exporters, of which 43 were parties to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, and four others were leading global exporters -- China, India, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
According to the main findings of the report, 20 of the assessed countries, which together account for nearly 40% of annual global exports, had taken little or no enforcement action against foreign bribery during the period of the survey.
Citing it, TIB executive director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said that the most important thing for Bangladesh was that the defaulting countries included some of the top trade and investment partners of Bangladesh, like India, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
"It is deeply disappointing that our trade and investment are so worryingly exposed to corruption due to continued failures of our partner countries, many of whom are ironically perceived to be ranked better than us as per most of the available internationally credible corruption indicators."
"We expect them to be able to do everything in their capacity to ensure that their corruption is no longer exported to countries like ours."
"We also call upon our government to be robustly vigilant to ensure that all measures are taken to prevent corruption-driven illicit deals in our international trade and investment relations."
The TI report ranked only Switzerland and the US as active enforcers, though far from perfect.
Countries in the lowest performers' category include Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Poland, Slovakia, and Turkey.
Notable among the second worst category of limited enforcers include Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden; while those among the moderate enforcers are Australia, France, Germany, Norway, and the UK.
