The Chinese mainland is perceived to be less corrupt than in 2005 -- climbing to 70 of 163 countries from the previous year's 78, Berlin-based nongovernmental graft watchdog Transparency International (TI) said in a report for this year released on Tuesday.

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Haiti, Myanmar and Iraq are perceived as the most corrupt countries in the world while Finland, Iceland and New Zealand are seen as the cleanest.

In Asia, Singapore was ranked No. 5, Hong Kong No. 15, Japan No. 17, Macao No. 26 and South Korea No. 42.

Taiwan's ranking declined from last year's 32nd to this year's 34th, but the result is in line with the public's perceptions about corruption, especially since there have been so many corruption scandals, including last week's indictment of Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian's wife Wu Shu-jen.

Among other nations, Australia is at nine, Britain at 11 and Russia at 121.

TI noted that while industrialized nations scored high on this year's index, corruption scandals continued to rock many of them.

A significant worsening in perceived levels of corruption was seen in Brazil, Cuba, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and the United States, which dropped to 20th place from 17th last year.

Algeria, Czech Republic, India, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Mauritius, Paraguay, Slovenia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uruguay showed a marked drop in graft, TI said.

The index score relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by businesspeople and country analysts and ranges between zero, which is highly corrupt, and 10, which is very clean.

TI said that corruption was shockingly rampant worldwide with almost three-quarters of the countries in the report scoring below five, including all low-income countries and all but two African states.

The Transparency International is an organization devoted to combatting corruption by bringing civil society, business and governments together.

On last year's list, the worst levels in perceived corruption were in Chad, Bangladesh and Turkmenistan