South Korea's global competitiveness fell a notch to 28th place among 63 countries in the International Institute for Management Development's(IMD) annual World Competitiveness Ranking.

According to Swiss-based IMD on Tuesday, South Korea made significant strides in the business efficiency metric -- jumping from 43rd to 34th -- but slipped in economic performance, government efficiency and infrastructure. 

It fell from 20th to 27th in economic performance, 29th to 31st in government efficiency and 18th to 20th in infrastructure. 

Singapore moved up from third to the top spot, edging out the U.S., which slipped to third this year. Hong Kong remained steady at second place.