South Korea's global digital competitiveness ranking rose by four notches to eighth in an annual ranking released by the Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development(IMD).

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on Wednesday that the country moved up in the 2022 IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking measuring a country's ability to adopt and explore different digital technologies leading to transformation in government, business and society.

This year, South Korea climbed four notches from a year earlier to return to the top ten based on the IMD’s assessment of the country in three main competitiveness categories — knowledge, technology and future readiness.

The nation ranked 19th in 2017, the first year the list was released, and rose to 14th in 2018, tenth in 2019 and eighth in 2020 before dropping to 12th last year.

Of the 63 nations assessed in the ranking, Denmark, which came in fourth last year, took the top place this year, while the United States slipped to second from the top spot.