KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia on Wednesday defended its slide in global corruption rankings, which came despite much-vaunted anti-graft campaigns, saying it will "take some time" to purge corruption.

Watchdog Transparency International said this week that Malaysia fell to 56, from 47 last year, on a league table of 180 countries surveyed around the world and that graft had hit "alarming" levels.

Prime Minister Najib Razak pledged to tackle corruption, which is endemic in Malaysian government and society, when he came to power in April.

His predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had been forced to quit, partly over his failure to fulfil his own anti-graft ambitions.

"Malaysia is committed to weed out corruption. It will take some time. It will not be weeded out overnight. We are confident that in the next ranking exercise, we will see an improvement," said Trade Minister Mustapa Mohamed. In a media briefing he insisted that the issue was not harming Malaysia's competitiveness.

"In my interactions with (business leaders) they are confident results will come. It is not a big factor in their investment decisions," he said.