The United States surpassed Hong Kong to take first place among the 63 economies in the 2018 World Competitive Ranking, released by IMD World Competitiveness Center, a research group at IMD business school in Switzerland.

The two were followed by Singapore, the Netherlands and Switzerland on the list. And Chinese mainland advanced five places to 13th from 18th last year.

The center has issued the ranking every year since 1989, and takes 258 different criteria into consideration. "Hard" data like national employment and trade statistics are weighed twice as much as "soft" data in the executive opinion survey, which measures business perceptions of issues like corruption, environmental concerns and quality of life.

Now let's look at the top 10 competitive economies in the world.

No 10 Canada