China ranked 17th in the world in terms of national competitiveness, up 56 places since 1990, according to a report issued by China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Monday.

The Blue Book of National Competitiveness said a country's national competitiveness comprised its economic volume, efficiency and structure as well as development potential and innovation ability.

It said that China's national competitiveness had spiraled up with its worldshaking achievements in the past 20 years thanks to the country's reform and opening-up policy.

A communique issued by the fifth plenary session of the 17th Communist Party of China Central Committee lists advancement of national competitiveness as one of the main goals of China's 12th Five-Year Program (2011-2015).

In terms of economic volume, the report said, China had been one of the world's top three largest economies. In terms of competitiveness of economic growth, China had ranked in the top five since 1992.

The report said the world's most populous country ranked first among G-20 countries in human resources due to the number of people in higher education.

However, China's human resource index (HRI), which indicates the proportion of college graduates, technicians, engineers and scientists to the total population, had ranked 18th for the past five years.

The United States and Japan had dominated the top two places of the HRI ranking from 2004 to 2008.

The report said China had slowed in expanding competitiveness of economic scale: China spent one year climbing from 10th to ninth place, while it spent five years rising from No.7 to No.6, mainly due to a lack of breakthroughs in new economic growth points and lack of sustainability in extensive growth mode.

China should strive to achieve a strategic goal of standing in the top five G-20 countries by 2020, and ranking only second to the US by 2050, the report said.

The results revealed by the report were based on research and analysis on changes of national competitiveness of 100 countries and economies from 1990 to 2008.

It listed the top 10 in national competitiveness as the US, the European Union, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France.

(Xinhua News Agency October 26, 2010)