China and India must move to curb corruption or else their booming economies will likely falter, a senior World Bank official said on Friday.
The giant Asian neighbours are growing at annual rates of 10 per cent and 8 per cent respectively, the fastest among the world's major economies, but both score poorly on controlling corruption, according to a World Bank study on quality of governance across countries.
The report used six indicators, including the ability to control corruption, to rank quality of governance in more than 200 countries.
China was placed at 31, while India ranked 47 in the list of most corrupt countries. Both countries also have a poor record of enforcing the rule of law, the report said.
"They are not in the right zone," said Daniel Kaufmann, director of global governance at the World Bank's research arm.
To sustain their rapid economic growth and graduate to the next level of development, China and India must "pay priority to these issues," Kaufmann said.
Economies of both China and India have grown briskly over the past decade, despite the reported high levels of corruption and some experts have questioned if there is a clear link between corruption and growth.
But Kaufmann said that widespread practices of graft will eventually slow growth in the long term.
Corruption leads to poor enforcement of the rule of law, weakens regulatory systems, adds to political instability and makes the government less effective - all of which determine the quality of governance in any country, he said.
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