The 9 most competitive countries in the world for doing business

Business school INSEAD has released its annual "Global Talent Competiveness Index" (GTCI), an annual benchmarking report that measures the ability of countries to compete for talent.

High ranking countries share key traits, including educational systems that meet the needs of the economy, employment policies that favour flexibility, mobility and entrepreneurship.

In a list dominated by European countries, Nordic states perform particularly well, taking three of the 9 top spots.

Take a look at the countries which made the top of the ranking.

9. Finland — The northern European state comes first overall for formal education, ranking highly in its ability to home-grow business talent as a result. Its business environment also ranks highly (6th overall), led by a very strong regulatory landscape.

8. Denmark — The Scandinavian country comes 3rd overall both for its business environment and ability to home-grow talent. Its formal education system is also among the best in the world, coming 6th overall.

7. Luxembourg — The landlocked Western European country has slipped from 3rd place in 2016 to 7th this year, but remains a top country for its ability to attract global talent. Luxembourg also excels at retaining its domestic talent (3rd overall) thanks to its international reputation as a hub of industry and finance.

6. Australia — One of the top countries in terms of attracting talent from abroad (6th), Australia has the large pool of high-level management skills necessary for a business-competitive country. Its formal education (4th overall) is among the best in the world.

5. Sweden — Sweden excels at retaining talent, coming 4th overall in the sub-index. With good formal education and good lifelong access to educational courses, the country's workforce possesses a pool of vocational and technical skills, as well as high-level business management skills.

4. United States — Due largely to its leading network of universities, the US comes second overall in the "Growth" sub-index, which measures a country's ability to grow talent through university courses, apprenticeships, and other training.

3. United Kingdom — The UK performs well across the board except in the vocational and technical skills of its workforce. It is an attractor of talent with good external openness, although the report notes this could change after Brexit.

2. Singapore — The sovereign city-state in southeast Asia ranks 1st for its business environment and ability to attract top-level global talent, with high scores across the rest of the measures too.

1. Switzerland — The central European country comes at the top overall due to its strong performance across all pillars of the GTCI model, in particular showing an excellent capacity to attract and retain talent. It lags behind in gender equality variables, however.