The latest Global Competitiveness Report by the World Economic Forum shows the China's total score increased by 1.3 points, which means the country ranks 28th overall, out of 141 economies, its position remains unchanged.

More specifically, the forum says that China has seen a significant growth in the Information and Communication Technology adoption index, where it ranks 18th. It is ranked 24th in terms of Innovation Capability, and 36th in Infrastructure.

"Mainland is doing also quite well at 28th. On many accounts they already up there at the level of advanced economies. Innovation capacities are also extremely well developed," said Thierry Geiger Head of Research and Benchmarking at World Economic Forum.

Global economy locked in a cycle of flat productivity growth

"The report finds the global economy has been locked in a cycle of low/flat productivity growth despite some 10 trillion U.S. dollars injection by central banks. Ten years on money system and no reviving of productivity this is a key driver of long-term growth," said Geiger.

He also explained“now it seems that pretty much running out of steam, we call for switching gears, and thinking about fiscal policies of structure reforms. That really address productivity growth and clearly the past ten years have not been used to make those investment, instead most of money has been used in the stock market. And companies have been holding on cash rather than expending investing.”

The Forum says China is by far the best performer among the BRICS developing nations, which include Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa. China also outperforms 25 OECD countries in terms of information communications technology adoption. Elsewhere, Singapore has overtaken the US to top the overall list. The forum says the world economy is expecting a downturn because of rising protectionism.

Geiger said“as the U.S.-China trade war drags on, tariffs impact a country's competitiveness and are bad for the economy, so the tariff just put barriers in trade product input less value for money. It is just whole trade system that dropped."

"We know international trade system has been doing great to economic growth for the past fifty years. That saved the world in 2008. Now we worried to see some tensions that could worsen this effect on global economy prospect for next few years.”

Geiger also added "increasing tariff is not helping at all. And yes, it's bad; this kind of protectionism is bad. It's the uncertainty that this tension creates that is affecting the business sentiment and could actually accelerate the downturn."

Meanwhile, China's Hong Kong ranks third, moving it up four places. The city appears in the top 10 on eight indexes, and outperforms the OECD benchmark on every pillar.

But the forum was quick to point out that the statistics for Hong Kong were collected before the protests broke out in June.

The Global Competitiveness Report has been published since 2004. This year's report is based on 103 indicators of 12 themes, or "pillar industries".