LONDON: India’s reputation globally has improved greatly while that of its neighbours – China and Pakistan has nosedived in the eyes of the world.

India is ranked 33rd among 55 countries as far as its reputation perceived by people from across the world is concerned. Its reputation has increased by 7.4%.

Pakistan and China on the other hand is among the bottom 10 countries. China is ranked 46th while Pakistan is ranked 53rd in the world reputation rankings – two ranks higher that the two worst countries – Iran (54) and Iraq (55).

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Interestingly, Indians themselves think very highly of their own country.

When it came to internal perception rankings, India is ranked 4th – just below Australia, Canada and Russia. India’s self image score was nearly 82.

Crimea annexation and the Ukrainian crisis are costing Russia its reputation, worsening its downward trend as Russia is ranked 52nd.

Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and Australia are the best perceived countries among the population of the most relevant economies of the world.

Latin American countries still maintain a growth path headed by Colombia. On the other hand, Brazil’s reputation fell as a consequence of institutional and economic crisis.

Asian countries keep improving their reputations, led by Iran (10.8%), although still at very low levels. India and China have relevant increases in 2015 (+7.4% and +7.9%, respectively).

European countries are changing trends: Germany’s reputation starts to erode (-1.3%), while Spain (+6.1%), Portugal (6.1%), Italy (+5.4%) and Ireland (+5.2%) improved their reputations after their economic indicators started to improve.

USA’s reputation seems to have stabilized after the positive trend under the Barack Obama administration and is ranked 22nd – much below UK which is ranked 13th, Italy (14), Germany (15) and France (19). Reputation Institute’s 2015 Country RepTrak is the world’s largest annual survey of country reputations.

Since the survey began in 2010, Canada has ranked first all but two of those years and never lower than second place. At the top of the list are all of Scandinavia, with Norway in second place, immediately followed by Sweden and Switzerland.

“When people perceive a country positively based on their direct experiences and through the lens of others, that translates into increased tourism dollars,” says Fernando Prado, managing partner at Reputation Institute. “That’s because a country’s reputation dictates supportive behaviours such as the willingness of people to visit that country.”

In 2015, Reputation Institute conducted more than 48,000 interviews for this survey to measure public’s perception of 55 countries based on three dimensions — effective government, appealing environment, and advanced economy.

Countries with strong reputations are perceived positively in all three dimensions.

The report says: “Historically, the reputation of the United States was poor, however, the reputation has improved 20% to an average reputation under the Obama administration and is now stable."