AKIPRESS.COM - China and Turkey are among countries that tumbled the most in a global corruption ranking as they displayed widespread or increased levels of bribery, graft and opacity, Transparency International said.

China fell to 100th place on the list, down from 80th last year, the watchdog group said in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index. Turkey slid to 64th place from 53rd in 2013. Egypt and Afghanistan gained in the ranking, which places the least corrupt countries at the top.

“Economic growth is undermined and efforts to stop corruption fade when leaders and high level officials abuse power to appropriate public funds for personal gain,” Jose Ugaz, the chairman of Berlin-based Transparency International, said of corruption worldwide in an e-mailed statement.

China’s decline in the ranking comes even as President Xi Jinping places fighting corruption at the top of his political agenda since taking the helm of the Communist Party in 2012. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government have denied corruption allegations as critics accuse him of cementing authoritarian power and blocking free speech.

Denmark and New Zealand, the usual frontrunners, topped the list again in 2014. Somalia and North Korea were perceived to be the most corrupt at the bottom of the ranking.

The ranking, a composite index that draws from 12 surveys, has become a benchmark gauge of perceptions of a country’s corruption and is used by analysts and investors. The index grades a country on a scale of zero to 100, the latter being the least corrupt. Denmark scored 92 points, Somalia eight.

With 74 points, the U.S. ranked 17th. The U.K. scored 78, placing it 14th on the list. Russia ranked 136th with 27 points. Turkey had 45 points, and China had 36.