KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia ranks 72nd globally in resilience against illicit trade, while Asean as a whole trails major global economic groupings despite the region's growing importance as a manufacturing and trading hub.
A new report by the Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade (Tracit) found that Asean scored 49.7 points on its Illicit Trade Index.
This is below the Asia Pacific average of 50.9 and far behind the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) 64.4 points.
Singapore leads Asean at 29th out of 158 countries globally, followed by Indonesia at 39th and Thailand at 56th.
