Thursday, May 30th, 2013
SEOUL, KOREA - Korea's global competitiveness ranking remained unchanged at 22nd for the third consecutive year in 2013. According to the 2013 World Competitiveness Yearbook announced by the International Management Development Institute, Korea ranked 22nd in terms of global competitiveness among 60 countries surveyed.
The United States and Switzerland gained one notch to the first and second place from 2012 while Hong Kong lost grounds to third. China moved up two notches to 21st and Japan came in 24th from 27th last year.
In terms of economic achievement, Korea saw its ranking rise from 27th to 20th, while that for government efficiency and infrastructure also improved to 20th and 19th from 25th and 20th, respectively. However, the country's ranking in corporate efficiency slipped from 25th to 34th over the same period.
The report included Korea in the "winner" club along with eight other countries as its ranking jumped eight steps from 1997 when it stood at 30th in global competitiveness. Winner countries refer to those whose standing rose five notches or more from when the ranking report was first compiled.