New Delhi: India has ranked worse than China and Bhutan in terms of "corruption perception" but fares better than its other neighbours, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to a global list released by graft watchdog Transparency International.

In the Corruption Perception Index for 2017, India ranked 81st with a score of 40.

The index ranks 180 jurisdictions by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, according to experts and business people, and uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 denotes highly corrupt and 100 very clean.

Among neighbouring countries, Pakistan ranked 117th with a score of 32; Bangladesh 143rd (with a score of 28), Myanmar 130th (score 30) and Sri Lanka 91st (score 38).

Bhutan has the best score of 67 among India's neighbours and ranked 26th.

China ranked 77 with a score of 41.

In the Brics block of major emerging economies, South Africa ranked the best (71st), followed by China and India, while Brazil is at 96th and Russia is at 135th place.

According to the report, more than half the countries in the Asia Pacific region score less than 50 on the index.

"While corruption continues to be a rampant problem across the region, improvements will only be made if there is strong political will for change and if a comprehensive strategy is adopted, not one based on isolated actions," the report said.

New Zealand and Denmark have topped the list, while Syria, South Sudan and Somalia have been ranked the lowest with scores of 14, 12 and 9, respectively.

The best performing region is western Europe with an average score of 66.

The worst performing regions are Sub-Saharan Africa (with an average score 32) and eastern Europe and Central Asia (with an average score of 34), the report said. PTI