South Korea's global competitiveness ranking has fallen by four notches to 27th place in an annual ranking released by the Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development(IMD).

According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance on Wednesday, the 2022 IMD World Competitiveness Ranking assessed 63 countries based on four categories — economic performance, business efficiency, government efficiency and infrastructure.

Korea had been placed 27th in the IMD survey in 2018, improving from 29th the previous year, and was ranked 28th in 2019 and 23rd in 2020 and 2021.

Its ranking among the 29 countries with populations over 20 million fell by a notch from last year to ninth, while it was placed fourth among those with a per-capita income of 30-thousand U.S. dollars and a population exceeding 50 million, trailing the U.S., Germany and Britain.

By category, Korea’s ranking declined from 18th to 22nd in economic performance and from 34th to 36th in government efficiency. It was placed 33rd in business efficiency, compared to 27th last year, but improved in infrastructure by a notch to 16th.

Denmark topped the comprehensive list for the first time, followed by Switzerland, Singapore, Sweden and Hong Kong. The U.S. and Japan were ranked 10th and 34th, respectively.