A new report, compiled by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and released on Thursday, ranked China 89th among 169 countries on the human development index.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon along with UNDP Administrator Helen Clark and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, launched the annual Human Development Report, which also marked the 20th anniversary edition.

The report provides insights into the world's most pressing challenges facing humanity.

China was noted as one of the "top Human Development Index ( HDI) mover," which compose of "countries that have made the greatest progress in improving the HDI," said the report.

The HDI is a combination of national measures of health, education and income and tracked the achievements for 169 countries.

Other Asian countries showing significant improvement included Indonesia and South Korea, the report noted.

Among the countries toping the scale in ranks were Norway, Australia and New Zealand, said the report. Mali, Burkina Faso and Liberia were countries that ranked towards the bottom.

"Twenty years ago, the first Human Development Report stunned the international community with the simple premise that people are the true measure of a nation's wealth," Ban said here at the launch of the UNDP report.

The Human Development Report "was much more than a clever, intellectual exercise -- it was designed to change thinking ... spur action and get results," Ban said. "And it did."

(Xinhua News Agency November 5, 2010)