38% global firms asked to pay bribes in India: Study

Despite India becoming a new destination for global investors, 38 per cent of over 5,400 companies' representatives surveyed by the global consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers said they were asked to pay bribes to get licences, orders over the past two years.

Among the seven major emerging economies of the world, India is ahead of Turkey, Mexico and China, where 28, 28 and 21 per cent of firms in that order reported experience with bribery, according to the PwC 2007 Global Economic Crime Survey released here on Tuesday.

"The Indian companies and government should be concerned about the perception of global firms regarding corrupt environment in India as it would affect the flow of foreign investment and cost of raising funds by India Inc," the firm's Advisory Leader Ashwani Puri said while releasing the survey.

Russia, Indonesia and Brazil were, however, ahead of India in terms of corporate corruption, where about half of the surveyed firms reported they had been asked to pay bribes.

Of those firms which had to contend with bribery in India, 66 per cent said they lost the opportunity to their competitors because of this factor.

The survey also noted that one-third of the Indian companies surveyed have been victims of economic frauds like asset misappropriation, bribery, accounting frauds and infringement of intellectual property rights in the past two years.

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