Georgia saw the largest reduction in corruption among all transition countries from 2002-2005, says a World Bank (WB) report issued on July 26.

'Anticorruption in Transition 3—Who is Succeeding … And Why?' is a detailed report of studies examining the patterns and trends in corruption in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

“Among countries showing the most dramatic improvements are Georgia and the Slovak Republic, where committed leaders are implementing strong programs of economic and institutional reform and firm-level bribery has fallen substantially,” the World Bank report reads.

“The most striking improvements from 2002 to 2005 were in Georgia where the percentage of firms reporting that bribery of tax officials was frequent fell from 44% to 11% in these three years.”

The report says that “major improvements” are also observed in customs-related bribery in Georgia.

The firms in the survey report less frequent bribery in the courts then three years ago in a few countries, including in Georgia, Romania and the Slovak Republic, according to the WB report.