June 17, 2020 11:23
Korea rose five notches to 23rd place in global competitiveness rankings by the Institute for Management Development.
The Swiss business school issues an annual report that ranks 63 countries. Korea ranked 22nd, the highest so far, from 2011 through 2013 but fell to 29th in 2016 and had been unable to make noticeable progress until last year.
Singapore came top for the second year running, while Denmark and Switzerland rose to second and third place.
In Asia, Hong Kong ranked fifth, Taiwan 11th, Australia 18th and China 20th, while Japan's ranking plunged four notches to a poor 34th.
Countries are assessed in four categories -- economic performance, government and business efficiency, and infrastructure. Korea improved in the last three but not the first.
Its strengths were a low rate of long-term unemployment, start-up procedures, digital transformation in companies and research and development spending.
But Korea still needs to improve in relocations threats of business, tariff barriers, corporate boards' effectiveness and multilateral environment agreements, IMD said.
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