U.S. Slides Down to 5th Place in Global Competitiveness Survey

Switzerland retained for the third consecutive year its top ranking in the World Economic Forum (WEF) yearly global competitiveness survey.

The report, released on Wednesday, assessed nations based on 12 categories such as innovation, infrastructure and macroeconomic environment.

The last time the United States topped the list was in 2008. For 2011, the U.S. continued its decline also for the third straight year and landed to fifth place. The report pointed to economic vulnerabilities in the U.S., low public trust in politicians and concerns over government inefficiency as among the reasons behind the slump.

On second spot was Singapore, which overtook Sweden, now on third place. Rounding up the top 10 are: Finland (4^th), Germany (6^th), the Netherlands (7^th), Denmark (8^th), Japan (9^th) and Britain (10^th).

France was on 18^th place, while troubled Greece tumbled down to 90^th place.

"Much of the developing world is still seeing relatively strong growth, despite some risk of overheating, while most advanced economies continue to experience sluggish recovery, persistent unemployment and financial vulnerability, with no clear horizon for improvement," WEF Chairman and founder Klaus Schwab said in a statement quoted by The New York Times.

Among the emerging economics, China had the best finish at 26^th place, an improvement from its 27^th finish in 2010.

Ranking was based on publicly available data and a survey of over 14,000 executives from 142 economies.

The 2011 ranking was issued just five months after the WEF released the 2010 ranking in April on use of computing and communications technology, Sweden ranked first among 138 countries that made up 98.8 per cent of the global gross domestic product.

The 2010 rankings used an index of 71 economic and social indicators ranging from new patents, to mobile phone subscriptions to availability of venture capital.

Like the 2011 report, the 2010 study showed the steady rise of Asian economies in ranking due to heavy government investment on technology. Singapore was on 2^nd place, Taiwan 6^th, South Korea 10^th, Hong Kong 12^th and Japan 19^th.

The biggest gainer from Asia was Indonesia which leapfrogged by 14 place to 53^rd spot because of higher educational standards and the priority given by the Indonesian government on information and communications technology.