BERLIN/MOSCOW, December 3 (RAPSI) – Russia has fallen nine places for the past year to 136th out of 175 countries in Transparency International's 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), a ranking of public sector corruption, made available on Wednesday.

The CPI, released annually, scores and ranks the world’s countries and territories according to the perceived corruptness of their public sectors. The CPI is a composite index based on a “combination of surveys and assessments of corruption, collected by a variety of reputable institutions,” according to an information sheet provided by Transparency International.

Each country in the index is assigned both a score and a ranking. The score falls on a scale ranging from zero to 100 – zero being the worst in terms of the perception of corruption, and 100 being the best.

Russia has maintained the score of 27 which it shares with with Nigeria, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Iran and Cameroon.

In 2013, Russia ranked 127th out of 177 countries with the score of 28.

Denmark and New Zealand were ranked the most transparent for the third year in a row, with scores of 92 and 91, followed by Finland (89 scores). That means they were perceived to have the lowest levels of public sector corruption.

North Korea and Somalia were seen as having the most corrupt governments, each receiving a score of 8.