The most impressive, solid, clean and composed AKs I have personally seen or heard about are made by G&G (Taiwan), VFC (Taiwan), LCT (Taiwan) and Realsword (Hong Kong).
If you are on a budget, nearly everybody who is experienced with AKs (I'm hoping MADDOG will chime in on this thread) answers this question with the same answer:
CYMA. CYMA's bread and butter is AKs, and they can be upgraded once you decide to go beyond stock, they are widely available, mag compatibility is good, etc..
Stay away from JG
