Our Little Red Dot has gained multiple accolades as of late: first for having the second best airline in the world, then for having not one but two of its hotels make it to the World’s 50 Best Hotels list for 2023. We’ve also been named the sixth Blue Zone in the world, where our citizens thrive with higher life expectancies. And to add on to the all of that, we’ve just been crowned the 16th best country in the world for 2023, incidentally the second best country in Asia.
According to the U.S. News Best Countries rankings, now in its eighth year, the countries are rated according to various characteristics including but not limited to quality of life, entrepreneurship, cultural influence, power, and how open for business they are. A total of 87 countries were considered in 2023’s rankings.
Well, they don’t call it the “Swiss standard of living” for nothing – Switzerland has emerged tops as the best country in the world for 2023, followed by Canada, Sweden, Australia, and the United States of America. Japan comes in at sixth place, taking the spot of the best country in Asia for this year. Germany, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and Netherlands complete the top 10 spots.
It is interesting to note that despite Japan’s higher placement, their GDP per capita of $45,573 is markedly below Singapore’s, which has been stated as $127,565 in the list. Perhaps this proves that money isn’t everything – after all, it was also recently announced that you need an annual income of approximately S$103,007 to be happy in Singapore, while the median annual salary is in fact around S$60,900.
Other Asian countries making the world’s best countries list for 2023 include China at #20, South Korea at #21, Thailand at #29, and India at #30.
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