Bulgaria is among the world's leading exporting countries that are failing to enforce the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

The information is published Tuesday in a Transparency International (TI) report.

The Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention  bans foreign bribery, but the TI's report shows that only 4 out of 36 countries evaluated are actively enforcing it.

There is moderate enforcement in 11 other countries and little to no enforcement in 21 countries.

The major obstacles, faced by the Convention, listed in the report are: antiquated bribery laws, outright political obstruction of investigations, lack of adequate funding for prosecutors or curtailing the powers of investigative magistrates the OECD Convention, the use of national security considerations as a reason for not prosecuting foreign bribery.

"To achieve a level playing field all the major exporters should play by the same rules. It is encouraging that Israel and South Africa have joined the Convention in the last year. China, India and Russia also need to be brought into the fold. It is in the best interest of these countries to protect their firms' investments with anti-bribery measures," the report states.

Germany, Norway, Switzerland, United States are the only 4 countries that actively enforce the Convention.

Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom have moderate enforcement, while there is little or no enforcement in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkey

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