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Lithuania has improved its position in this year’sCorruption Perception Index (CPI) in comparison to the previous year, the Transparency International informed on 18 November. After few years of worsening situation in the fight against corruption Lithuanian got closer to the threshold at which a country is considered capable of dealing with corruption.

In its statement the ‘Transparency International Lithuania’ admitted that there is a reason for a cautious optimism; "We can cautiously say that Lithuania’s anti-corruption situation improved slightly”. It admitted that "Lithuania’s CPI pretty much returned to the 2007 level and came short of crossing the five point threshold. We can speak of positive tendencies after Lithuania starts displaying consistent progress in the field of anti-corruption,” Lithuania’s TI branch said in a statement.

Lithuania once again is approaching the 5-point threshold, which indicates that a country is capable of dealing with corruption. Lithuania scored 4.6 points in the CPI 2008 and 4.8 points in the 2007 Corruption Perception Index. Transparency International gave Lithuania 4.9 points, and the 52nd place in a rating of 180 countries.

The data gathered by the organisation stated that Lithuania together with Bangladesh, Belarus, Guatemala, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Syria and Tonga is one of nine countries to have made the most progress on the CPI 2009 in comparison to that of the previous year.

However the organisation stated that it is too early for euphoria. The statement issued today said; "Lithuania is delaying implementation of its program to counter corruption, a national strategy on public procurement is yet to see the light of day, there’s no systemic application of cost-benefit analysis in the public sector. The newly adopted Law on Public Procurement must be amended, and one facilitating the process of reporting corruption needs to be passed”.

Lithuanian businessmen complain that corruption is one of the main factors halting Lithuania’s growth and the foreign investors say that this is one of main reasons behind slow direct foreign investment to Lithuania.