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U.S. slips in WEF's competitiveness rankings
Thu Sep 9, 5:22 am ET

BEIJING (Reuters) – Switzerland remains the world's most competitive economy, while the United States has fallen from second to fourth after losing the top spot last year, according to the World Economic Forum's annual rankings issued on Thursday.

Sweden, in second spot, and Singapore in third leapfrogged the United States in the WEF's Global Competitiveness Report 2010/2011.

Last year the Asian city-state ranked third and Sweden fourth. There were no newcomers in the WEF's top 10, although Germany climbed to fifth from seventh.

The WEF said America slipped in the ranking due to a build-up in U.S. macroeconomic imbalances, a weakening of the country's public and private institutions and concerns about the state of its financial markets.

"There are weaknesses in some areas in particular, which we have discussed for some time before, and they deepened somewhat since last year," Jennifer Blanke, the lead economist of the WEF's Center for Global Competitiveness and Performance, told a news conference to release the report.

The report said a lack of macroeconomic stability continues to be America's greatest area of weakness, with repeated fiscal deficits leading to burgeoning public indebtedness.

It also said that U.S. business leaders show less trust in politicians and the government's ability to maintain an arm's-length relationship with the private sector........................>>>>.......................>>>>.......................http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100909/bs_nm/us_economy_competitiveness