Ljubljana - Slovenia has climbed one more spot in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking to 31st among 63 countries. The US continues on top of the list ahead of Singapore, Denmark, Sweden and Hong Kong.

In comparison with countries that joined the EU alongside Slovenia or later, Slovenia placed behind Estonia, which advanced eight spots to 21st, and Lithuania in 29th, but ahead of Poland in 32nd and Czechia in 35th.

Slovenia's neighbour Austria places 16th, a spot ahead of Germany, while Italy ranks 42nd, the Institute for Economic Research, the IMD's partner in Slovenia, noted in a press release.

"Despite the European Innovation Scoreboard survey finding that Slovenia has fallen back in business innovation in recent years, the country has improved its ranking by five spots in the Digital Competitiveness survey in the 2016-2020 period," the institute pointed out.

The survey, compiled by the Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD), gauges countries' capacity to adopt and explore digital technologies leading to the transformation in government practices, business models and society in general.

The ranking is a combined result of three factors: knowledge, technology and readiness for the future. Slovenia scored highest in knowledge at 29th, two spots lower than last year.

Slovenia ranks high in terms of educational achievements in mathematics, number of researchers, expenditure for research and development, on-the-job training, digital skills, spending for education and high-tech patents registration.

The potential for improvements is seen mainly in greater availability of highly-qualified staff from abroad and a larger scope of the top management's international experiences.

Slovenia places 35th in terms of technology, level with the year before and 37th in readiness for the future, a spot lower than last year.