A Swiss institute has ranked South Korea 27th out of 57 countries for global competitiveness, four notches higher than the nation placed one year ago.

The World Competitiveness Yearbook, released by the International Institute for Management Development, said improvements in business efficiency is the main factor behind this year’s higher ranking.

Slight improvements were seen in government efficiency, infrastructure and economic performance.

The nation also received high marks for employment, public finance, productivity, scientific and technological infrastructure. But South Korea scored low in the areas of international investment, prices, government regulations on business operations and basic infrastructure.

The nation also barely made the cut to be categorized as a stable country, ranking 29th in a stress test on how well it could cope with an economic slowdown and work to improve competitiveness afterwards.

The United States came in first for overall competitiveness followed by Hong Kong and Singapore.