The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has topped the 2014 Edelman's Trust Barometer, a major global index that measures people's trust in government and business.

The country achieved the biggest increase in trust compared to the previous year.

UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has expressed his delight with the ranking.

Sheikh Mohammed tweeted: "The people's confidence in the government led by President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, comes as a result of the government's closeness to people and its response to their needs."

He reiterated that the UAE government will continue the development process and remain close to the people, "And as a team, we will score more successes."

The New York-based Edelman Foundation has confirmed that the plans and strategies launched by the UAE government contributed to boosting confidence in the government and economic performance.

More than 27,000 consumers in 27 countries, aged 25 to 64, responded to the report. Respondents have college education and are in the top 25 per cent of their countries in terms of household income.

Meanwhile, the Barometer revealed the largest ever gap (14 points) between trust in government and business worldwide. Driven by the decimation of trust in government and not an increase in business trust, the gap was 20 points or greater in nearly half of the 27 countries surveyed, including the US (21 points), India (26 points) and Brazil (36 points).

Trust in business has stabilised at 58 percent due to the perception that it has made demonstrable change in the form of better products and new leadership, it said.

Trust in government fell globally four points to an historic low (44 percent) making it the least trusted institution for the third consecutive year.

The drop in government trust among informed publics was even more dramatic on a country level, plummeting in the US (16 points to 37 percent), France (17 points to 32 percent) and Hong Kong (18 points to 45 percent). Populist sentiment is evident in the fact that among the general population trust in government is below 50 percent in 22 of the 27 countries surveyed, with strikingly low levels in Western Europe, particularly in Spain (14 percent), Italy (18 percent) and France (20 percent).