Korea ranks 27th among 57 economies surveyed by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) on the competitiveness of nations, up four notches from the previous year. It jumped two notches to third place year-on-year in terms of scientific infrastructure, but stayed at 14th place in technological infrastructure.
Korea’s overall ranking was 31st in 2004, 27th in 2005, 32nd in 2006, 29th in 2007 and 31st in 2008. The country's rankings rose from 36th to 29th this year in business efficiency; from 37th to 36th in government efficiency; from 21st to 20th in infrastructure; and from 47th to 45th in economic performance.
More specifically, Korea performed well in scientific infrastructure in the 2009 rating, ranking top in per capita patents and fifth in the ratio of corporate investment in research and development to GDP. In technological infrastructure, it ranks fifth in the ratio of exports of state-of-the-art products to overall exports of manufactured goods, 11th in the ratio of communications costs to GDP, and 11th in communications technologies.
