Again this year, the United States is first in the rankings of the 2009 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, a pioneer in ranking and analyzing how nations compete and manage their path to prosperity,

But will the United States’ run continue? In 1989, Japan seemed firmly in the number one position with the US in third. By 1994, however, the US took over leadership, a position it has held ever since.










Countries 2009 2008

(1) USA 1 100.000 100.000

(3) HONG KONG 2 98.146 94.964

(2) SINGAPORE 3 95.740 99.330

(4) SWITZERLAND 4 94.163 89.656

(6) DENMARK 5 91.741 83.852

(9) SWEDEN 6 90.520 82.464

(7) AUSTRALIA 7 88.934 83.500

(8) CANADA 8 88.708 82.852

(15) FINLAND 9 88.373 75.025

(10) NETHERLANDS 10 87.758 80.476

(11) NORWAY 11 86.604 79.516

(5) LUXEMBOURG 12 86.274 84.405

(16) GERMANY 13 83.508 74.735

QATAR 14 81.995 0.000

(18) NEW ZEALAND 15 79.621 73.374

(14) AUSTRIA 16 79.294 75.028

(22) JAPAN 17 78.242 70.028

(19) MALAYSIA 18 77.162 73.199

(12) IRELAND 19 76.956 77.638

(17) CHINA MAINLAND 20 76.595 73.758

(21) UNITED KINGDOM 21 76.069 71.904

(24) BELGIUM 22 75.965 68.746

(13) TAIWAN 23 75.390 77.359

(20) ISRAEL 24 73.425 72.408

(26) CHILE 25 70.933 64.173

(27) THAILAND 26 70.762 63.096

(31) KOREA 27 68.408 58.884

(25) FRANCE 28 68.071 66.012

(28) CZECH REPUBLIC 29 66.755 62.247

(29) INDIA 30 66.454 60.625

(36) LITHUANIA 31 64.882 56.234

(32) SLOVENIA 32 64.637 57.904

(30) SLOVAK REPUBLIC 33 63.913 59.365

(37) PORTUGAL 34 62.588 54.657

(23) ESTONIA 35 62.573 69.648

KAZAKHSTAN 36 61.047 0.000

(35) PERU 37 59.274 56.284

(39) BULGARIA 38 58.985 51.392

(33) SPAIN 39 57.849 57.515

(43) BRAZIL 40 56.865 48.576

(34) JORDAN 41 56.040 56.725

(51) INDONESIA 42 55.479 41.520

(40) PHILIPPINES 43 54.490 50.478

(44) POLAND 44 53.930 47.986

(38) HUNGARY 45 53.917 52.932

(50) MEXICO 46 53.903 43.825

(48) TURKEY 47 53.390 45.535

(53) SOUTH AFRICA 48 52.850 39.054

(47) RUSSIA 49 52.770 45.736

(46) ITALY 50 52.059 46.921

(41) COLOMBIA 51 51.538 50.396

(42) GREECE 52 50.781 48.761

(49) CROATIA 53 48.587 45.203

(45) ROMANIA 54 46.945 47.549

(52) ARGENTINA 55 43.084 40.205

(54) UKRAINE 56 40.421 38.170

(55) VENEZUELA 57 39.060 31.143