Botswana was the top-ranking African country on an index of economic freedom published this week by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank.

The top five African countries for economic freedom, according to the index, included Botswana, Cape Verde, Rwanda, Ghana and South Africa.

Botswana ranked No. 27 out of 178 countries ranked globally; Cape Verde ranked No. 60; Rwanda ranked No. 65, Ghana ranked No. 66  and South Africa ranked No. 75.

Countries received scores in 10 categories: property rights, freedom from corruption, fiscal freedom, government spending, business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom, trade freedom, investment freedom and financial freedom.

Of these, South Africa scored higher than the global average in all but three categories — fiscal, labor and investment freedom, according to a BusinessDayLive report.

Botswana’s overall economic freedom score was 72; Cape Verde’s was 66.1; Rwanda’s was 64.7; Ghana’s was 64.2; and South Africa’s was 62.5 — all higher than the global average of 60.3.

Hong Kong took the No. 1 spot for economic freedom with a score of 90.1. The U.S., by comparison, ranked No. 12 with a score of 75.5. Japan ranked No. 25 with a score of 72.5. China ranked 137th with a score of 52.5.

Russia ranked fairly low on the index, coming in at No. 140 with a score of 51.9. Faring worse than Russia for economic freedom were Ethiopia (No. 151); Angola (No. 160) and Zimbabwe (No.176). Despite being third from bottom, Zimbabwe did better than Cuba (No. 177) and North Korea (No. 178).

Other Top 10 African countries for economic freedom out of 178 countries ranked globally include Madagascar (No. 79, Score: 61.7); Swaziland (No. 82, Score: 61.2); Zambia (No. 88. Score: 60.4); Uganda (No. 91, Score: 59.9); and The Gambia (No. 92, Score: 59.5).

This year’s score for South Africa was 0.7 points higher than the previous year’s.

The index tracks economic freedom for 186 countries that account for 99 percent of the world’s population. Data for eight of the 186 countries were not available for the 2014 edition, including for Somalia and Sudan.

In all of Africa, only Botswana scored enough points to qualify as a “free” economy. Overall, Cape Verde, Rwanda, Ghana and South Africa ranked as moderately free economies.

The Heritage Foundation ranks countries with scores above 80 as “free,” those with scores between 70 and 80 as “mostly free,” those with scores between 60 and 70 as “moderately free” and those with scores below 60 as “mostly unfree” or “repressed,” BusinessDayLive reports.