A recent report of U.S. News and World Report has ranked Vietnam 39 out of 80 economies, up from 44 last year.

U.S. News & World Report is an American media company that publishes news, analysis, consumer advice, and rankings. More than 20,000 people from across the globe participated in this study.

The final rank is determined by each country’s sub-rank in nine categories – Adventure, citizenship (human rights), cultural influence, entrepreneurship, heritage, movers (economic growth rate), openness for business, power and quality of life.

Vietnam scored high in heritage, movers and open for business with 19, 16, 25 points respectively.

The country gained very high marks for having great food, a rich history, and being different and unique under the mover category.

In the open for business category, Vietnam got an almost perfect score for its cheap manufacturing costs.

A screen shot of U.S. News and World Report's Best countries overall rankings 2019.

According to the annual report, Switzerland retains its spot as the best country in the world in 2019. Completing the top 3 list are Japan, which jumped three spots to take the second place, and Canada, which dropped one spot down to third place this year.

The world’s leading economy the U.S. also retained its spot at number 8, while China climbed four spots to 16 this year.

In the Southeast Asian region, Vietnam is ranked below Singapore (15), Thailand (26) and Malaysia (38) and above Indonesia (43), the Philippines (50) and Myanmar (61).

The bottom ranked economy in this year’s ranking is Iraq, followed by Iran (79) and Angola (78).