Xinhua News Agency, Geneva, September 5 (Reporter Wu Chen Wang Zhao) The World Economic Forum, based in Geneva, Switzerland, released the "2012-2013 Global Competitiveness Report" in Geneva-London on the 5th. The ranking of the Chinese mainland has been stable for several years. After the rise, it dropped three places this year, ranking 29th.

This is the first time China's competitiveness ranking has fallen since 2005. However, it still maintains a leading position in the BRICS countries. In the other four BRICS countries, except for Brazil (No. 48), South Africa (No. 52), India (No. 59) and Russia (No. 67) all declined slightly.

In an interview with Xinhua News Agency, Margarita Anu, one of the report's authors and a senior economist at the World Economic Forum, said that China still performs well, and the factors affecting rankings are very small and difficult to interpret at present. She believes that China's leading position relative to other BRICS countries will not change for some time, and Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization may change its future rankings.

The World Economic Forum pointed out that the strong competitive growth momentum of Asian developing countries in recent years has tended to slow down, and most parts of Asia still face problems such as insufficient transportation and energy infrastructure and low technology adoption rate.

Switzerland continues to top the list of 144 economies in the world this year, followed by Singapore, Finland and Sweden. The report said that since the financial crisis in 2008, Switzerland and other Nordic countries are consolidating their dominant position; Spain (36th), Italy (42nd), Portugal (49th) and Greece (96th), etc. Southern European countries are still trapped in a competitive weak pool, with problems such as macroeconomic imbalances, poor financing channels, stubborn unemployment and insufficient innovation.

The United States fell by 7th, ranking behind the Netherlands (5th) and Germany (6th), which is the fourth consecutive year of decline in US competitiveness. Anu pointed out that this is mainly because the United States has not been able to cope with a series of problems such as macroeconomic fluctuations and public debts in the past few years, and the public's trust in the political circles has decreased.

In this year's ranking, Hong Kong and China Taiwan ranked 9th and 13th. Japan and South Korea are ranked 10th and 19th respectively. Qatar ranks 11th, the highest ranked country in West Asia and North Africa; sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa (52nd) ranks highest; in Latin America, Chile (33rd) continues to lead.

The President of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, urged governments to take decisive action and adopt long-term measures to increase competitiveness and guide the world back to sustainable growth. He pointed out that the widening of the gap in competitiveness between regions and within the region, especially in Europe, is the main cause of today's social unrest and will jeopardize future prosperity.

Since 1979, the World Economic Forum has published a global competitiveness report each year. The competitiveness ranking is based on the global competitiveness index, which consists of 12 categories of indicators such as system, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment and commodity market efficiency. In October last year, the agency announced the adjustment of the competitiveness evaluation method, the introduction of sustainable development factors, and the "sustainability competitiveness index" as an important measure of competitiveness ranking.