The survey by Asian Intelligence, an independent fortnightly report on Asian business and politics, found that Thailand got a worse score than last year but much better than 2014.

“Only a minority of respondents felt corruption had worsened while the bulk of respondents thought it had improved or had not changed,” Asian Intelligence reported in its latest edition.

Thailand got a score of 7.67 this year, which is worse than Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, but better than Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Last year, the Kingdom’s score was 6.88, compared to 8.25 in 2014, 6.83 in 2013 and 6.57 in 2012.

Grades range from zero to 10, with zero being the best grade possible and 10 the worst.

The survey on 16 countries, which includes Australia and the United States, ranked Singapore at the top of the table with a score of 1.67 and India at the bottom (8.13).

The survey question asked was: “How do you grade the problem of corruption in the country in which you are working?”

It was conducted on 1,742 respondents – about 100 from each country – in the first quarter using face-to-face interviews, polling delegates at different conferences in Asia, and emails directed at specific business mailing lists such as various chambers of commerce.

Expatriates and local residents surveyed perceived that corruption worsened over the past year in 11 of the 16 countries. Corruption improved in four countries and showed no change in one.

Two countries where the perception was worse this year than last year were the US and Australia. The remaining nine countries were all Asian, meaning the number of Asian countries where perceptions deteriorated was more than double the number where perceptions improved or stayed the same.

Asian Intelligence reported that confidence in Thailand’s post-coup government’s ability to deal with corruption has been shaken by numerous events and government policies.

“There has been too little substance behind the junta’s trumpeting of their war on corruption and determination to call the crooks to account. Prosecutions and convictions have been few,” it said.

However respondents believe Thailand’s corruption problem has lessened under the military regime compared to what existed in the era of Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck.

But they also believe corruption is prevalent in Thailand and there are shortcomings with state institutions in charge of crushing corruption from the top and civic corruption watchdogs responding to corruption at the bottom.