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Press Release
Site Selection Names Canada’s Best Locations, Top Utilities in Economic Development and Global
Groundwork Index Leaders
Atlanta, September
1, 2022 : Based on Site Selection’s exclusive,
proprietary project data from corporate end-users, the business
publication’s Canadian Competitiveness Award recognizes Ontario as
the most competitive province in a competitive nation, followed by
Saskatchewan and British Columbia. And metro areas from Halifax to
Vancouver and Montréal to Lethbridge populate Site Selection’s annual
Canada’s Best Locations list of top Canadian economic development
groups (see full lists below).“The annual Canada’s
Best Locations
feature sheds light on Canada’s many location options for growing
global companies and site selectors,” says Mark Arend, editor in
chief of Site Selection. “We salute the provinces and
communities that made this year’s rankings.”
This elite group of regions is determined by
examining
total corporate facility projects and their associated capital
investment and job creation numbers over a period from April 2021
through March 2022. The projects qualified for Site Selection’s Conway
Projects Database (at least $1 million invested, at least 20 new jobs
created or at least 20,000 new sq. ft. of space) are evaluated on
both a cumulative and per-capita basis. Among the 24 regions named
are 10 from Ontario, a province that among other things has welcomed
C$16 billion in automotive investments over 20 months and Tata
Consultancy Services’ fifth global innovation hub in Toronto as Tata
looks to create 5,000 jobs across Canada.
Top Utilities in Economic Development
Also featured in the September issue are Site Selection’s Top U.S. Utilities in Economic Development (see list below), based on analysis
of corporate end-user project activity in 2021 in those utilities’ territories (from the Conway
Projects Database and submitted materials). In addition to examining facility investment project
totals and calculating those projects’ jobs and capital investment numbers on a cumulative and
per-capita basis, Site Selection also welcomed questionnaire responses about the utilities’ website
tools and data; innovative programs and incentives for business (including energy efficiency and
renewable energy programs); and the utility’s own job-creating infrastructure and facility investment
trends.
“The elite Top 20 we named this year earned the honor amid a field of around 3,300 electric utilities
across the country, including around 900 cooperatives,” says Managing Editor Adam Bruns of the
rankings Site Selection has published since 1999. “Like the power they generate, their robust economic
development teams and programs are well distributed throughout the country. And just as their
generation and distribution portfolios turn toward renewables and smart technologies, these utilities’
economic developers are helping their communities pursue sustainable growth by cultivating the flow of
smart capital and talent.”
Global Groundwork Index
Site Selection’s Global Groundwork Index this year looked back at five years of Conway Projects
Database project data, then added data from the Federal Permitting Dashboard (which tracks
infrastructure projects across the nation) and the Global Infrastructure Hub’s Global Infrastructure
Monitor report, which offers infrastructure investment per capita and GDP per capita figures. The
result offers a snapshot of where private- and public-sector physical facility investment are
converging for the public good and increased prosperity.
The United States claims the crown among countries. Canada, South Korea, Mexico and India fill out the
top five. Among U.S. states, perched above powerful corporate/infrastructure blends in Georgia,
Indiana, Virginia and Arizona sits the state of Texas, repeating last year’s No. 1 ranking. As it
happens, Texas has so far garnered the second-highest funding from the $550 billion Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act of any state at $8 billion, behind only the $9.2 billion going to California,
which ranks 20th in Site Selection’s index.
The new issue of Site Selection also includes stories on economic development in Japan after the era
of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; automotive parts sustaining Mexico’s automotive economy; the
steel revolution in Arkansas; the rush of renewables in Texas before Chapter 313 incentives expire;
the lithium rush in Nevada; and the renewal of a former GE campus in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Other state
spotlights focus on California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Idaho, alongside regional reviews
examining Asian corporate investment in the Southeast and the transformation of the District of
Columbia from, as one leader puts it, “the hole in the donut” to “the jelly in the donut.” Industry
reports feature huge petrochemical investments in Alberta and exclusive insights into the next hot
logistics markets from Cushman & Wakefield. And two directories put Site Selection’s corporate readers
in direct contact with economic development organizations across Canada and utility economic
development departments.
In addition to the exclusive West Central Ohio Intelligence Report, the issue also includes Site
Selection Investment Profiles about San Bernardino County, California; Consumers Energy; Hoosier
Energy; Indiana Municipal Power Agency; Xcel Energy; Hoosier Energy; Fort Worth, Texas;
TeamCalifornia; Tradepoint Atlantic and the State of Maryland.
Site Selection magazine, the leading publication covering global corporate real estate strategy
and economic development, is in its 69th year of publication, and goes to a qualified circulation
of more than 42,000* corporate end users in print, in addition to publishing all of its material at www.siteselection.com. Global corporate
expansion experts Conway Data Inc., publisher of Site Selection, state economic development guides
under its Custom Content Publishing Division, and the Site Selection Investor Watch newsletter, has
been a trusted source of business intelligence to corporations, government economic development and
investment promotion agencies around the world since 1954. Conway Data owns and manages Conway Data
Events, organizer of the World Forum for FDI and FDI training seminars. Conway Data also manages
the Atlanta-based Industrial Asset Management Council, a professional association of 600-plus
corporate real estate executives, economic developers and commercial real estate service
providers.
*December 2021; all circulation information is publisher’s own data unless otherwise
specified.
2022 Canadian Competitiveness
Rankings
1.
Invest Ontario (Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade)
2.
Saskatchewan Trade & Invest (Ministry of Trade and Export Development)
3.
British Columbia Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation
2022 Canada’s Best Locations (alphabetical order within province)
ONTARIO
City of Brantford Economic Development and Tourism Department (Ontario)
Invest in Hamilton
Kingston Economic Development Corporation
London Economic Development Corporation
City of Mississauga
Invest Oakville
Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership
Toronto Global
Waterloo EDC
Invest WindsorEssex (Ontario)
QUEBEC
Montréal International
Québec International
Sherbrooke Innopole (Quebec)
IDE Trois-Rivières (Innovation et Développement économique Trois-Rivières) (Québec)
ALBERTA
Calgary Economic Development
Edmonton Global
Economic Development Lethbridge (Alberta)
SASKATCHEWAN
Economic Development Regina
Saskatoon Regional Economic Development Authority (SREDA)
BRITISH COLUMBIA
Vancouver Economic Commission
NOVA SCOTIA
Halifax Partnership
MANITOBA
Economic Development Winnipeg
NEW BRUNSWICK
City of Moncton
2022 Top Utilities in Economic Development (alphabetical order)
Alabama Power Company
Alliant Energy
Ameren Corporation
American Electric Power
Arizona Public Service
ComEd – An Exelon Company
Duke Energy
Entergy Corporation
FirstEnergy
Florida Power & Light Company
Georgia Power
Hoosier Energy
Indiana Municipal Power Agency
Kentucky’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives
LG&E and KU Energy LLC
Nebraska Public Power District
PECO, an Exelon Company
Salt River Project
South Carolina Power Team
Tennessee Valley Authority
2022 Global Groundwork Index
Rankings Top 20 Countries (combined
infrastructure and corporate end-user project investment strength)
