KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has gone up one place to 61 out of 180 countries in Transparency International's (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2018.

Malaysia, however, maintained a score of 47 points in the corruption index just like last year.

In 2017, Malaysia ranked 62 out of 180 countries, scoring 47 points out of 100.

In 2016, Malaysia was ranked 55 among 176 countries, scoring 49 points.

The index uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

The index ranks countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people.

The Malaysian score was based on nine survey sources.

TI-Malaysia president Datuk Seri Akhbar Satar said the country could improve its rankings and score if the government provided leadership and a strong will to drive the message of zero tolerance for graft through solid action.

"We will be able to see significant changes if the government keeps implementing anti-corruption measures and walks the talk, making sure there is no direct negotiations in the awarding of contracts.

"For this year, it is still too early because the government took over about seven months ago," he said at an event here on Tuesday (Jan 29).

This year, the index found that more than two-thirds of countries scored below 50, with an average score of 43.

Denmark was ranked highest with 88 points followed by New Zealand with 87 points. Finland, Norway and Switzerland scored 85 points.

Somalia maintained its ranking as worst in the world with 10 points while South Sudan and Syria had scores of 13 each.

In the Asean region, Malaysia ranked third behind Singapore, which had a score of 85 and Brunei (63).