Canada has climbed one spot, while Switzerland has unseated the U.S. at the top of the World Economic Forum’s 2009-2010 economic competitiveness rankings.

The latest Global Competitiveness Report was released by the WEF ahead of a meeting being held in Dalian, China on Tuesday.

The organization noted that the U.S. has fallen to second position in the rankings, due to the weakening of its financial markets and macroeconomic stability. Switzerland rose to the top spot primarily by remaining stable while the U.S. stumbled. Singapore, Sweden and Denmark round out the top five.

Canada now ranks ninth, up one spot from last year.

“Canada benefits from excellent transport and telephony infrastructure, highly efficient markets, particularly labor and financial markets, and well-functioning and transparent institutions,” the WEF said. “In addition, the country has been successful in nurturing its human resources: it is ranked 7th for health and primary education and 9th for higher education and training. This has paved the way for the country’s workforce to adopt the latest technologies for productivity enhancements.”

“Further, at a time when many industrialized and developing countries alike are struggling with macroeconomic instability, Canada has improved in this area since last year, rising from 43rd to 31st. Continuing to reduce the debt level will be important for ensuring the Canadian government’s ability to meet its future liabilities and grow in a sustainable way,” it added.

Finland, Germany and Japan rank just ahead of Canada, with Japan moving up from ninth place last year to eighth, while the Netherlands has slipped two spots from eighth to 10th place.

“The strong interdependence among the world’s economies makes this a truly global economic crisis in every sense. Policymakers are presently struggling with ways of managing these new economic challenges, while preparing their economies to perform well in a future economic landscape characterized by growing uncertainty. In a difficult global economic environment, it is more important than ever for countries to put into place strong fundamentals underpinning economic growth and development,” said Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF.

The rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and an annual survey conducted by the forum. This year, the survey canvassed over 13,000 business leaders in 133 economies, and is designed to capture a broad range of factors affecting each economy’s business climate. The rankings assess a variety of factors affecting competitiveness, including: infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health, education, labour market efficiency, and innovation.