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Press Release
Virginia Claims Top State Business Climate for 2022
Site Selection also publishes U.S. Foreign-Trade Zone and Ohio River
Corridor rankings.
Atlanta, November 1, 2022 : Site Selection magazine has named
Virginia as the state with the Top Business Climate in the U.S. The state, a frequent
Top 10 finisher in past editions of this annual ranking, heads the list of top 25 state
business climates published in the November 2022 issue of the magazine, followed by
perennial top-shelf competitors Georgia, Texas, North Carolina and Arizona, in that
order. The findings are based on an index that includes a survey of corporate real
estate executives and site selectors; criteria derived from corporate facility
investment data in the Conway Projects Database; and a number of external sources
touching on such business climate factors as taxation, infrastructure, tech employment
and startup ecosystem. Ohio, Florida, Indiana, California and Illinois round out the
top 10.
The executive survey portion of this year’s rankings has Tennessee No. 1, followed by North Carolina,
Georgia, Texas and Alabama.
“Virginia consistently ranks high on our list of top business climates, but this is the first time
it’s reached the top,” says Mark Arend, Editor in Chief of Site Selection. “But it claims first place
by itself this year with the blend of location ingredients required by capital investors in key
industry sectors. We congratulate the state level and local economic developers throughout Virginia
for working to cultivate a business climate that is the best in the U.S.”
In a survey published with the rankings, workforce skills repeated this year as the most important
criterion to site selectors for the seventh year in a row, with state and local tax scheme and
workforce development tied for No. 2 ahead of transportation infrastructure and ease of permitting and
regulatory procedures.
The overall Business Climate Ranking is based on the following updated list of
criteria (new factors this year in italics): a survey of corporate site selectors who are asked to
rank the states based on their recent experience of locating facilities in them; total qualifying
projects in 2021 cumulative and per capita, Conway Data Projects Database; total projects 2022 YTD
cumulative and per capita; 2022 Tax Foundation state business tax climate data; Inc. 5000 firms
cumulative and per capita; performance in the Rankings that Matter in Site Selection’s State
of the States report, Jan. 2022; CNBC America’s Top States for Business 2022; Cyberstates 2022
tech employment and % of overall employment; bipartisan infrastructure bill projects/funding as of
Sept. 2022 (GSA).
Top FTZs, Top Ohio River Corridor Metros
The November 2022 issue also ranks the top U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones and top states for FTZ economic impact
using an index derived from figures in the U.S. FTZ Board’s annual report to Congress released in
August. In the individual zone category, the Port of Houston Authority’s FTZ 84 in Harris County,
Texas, ranks No. 1, followed by San Jose’s FTZ 18 in California at No. 2 and the Port of South
Louisiana’s FTZ 124 in Gramercy at No. 3. Again this year, with four of the top 20 FTZs, Texas leads
the list of Top 10 States by FTZ Impact, followed by Louisiana, California, South Carolina and
Tennessee. The feature also includes a look at international free zone trends and practices from James
Forster of the Adrianople Group.
The November 2022 issue also includes our annual look at top Ohio River Corridor metros for project wins over the preceding 18
months, evaluating their capex and job creation numbers on a cumulative and per-capita basis. The
multistate regions of Greater Louisville and Greater Cincinnati tied for first this year thanks to
their own robust business climates.
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 40,000* 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 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
celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
*June 2022; all circulation information is publisher’s own data unless otherwise specified.
TOP 10 STATE BUSINESS CLIMATES
2022(2021 rank in parentheses)
1.
Virginia (T10)
2.
Georgia (2)
3.
Texas (3)
4.
North Carolina (1)
5.
Arizona (T8)
6.
Ohio (4)
7.
Florida (T12)
T8.
Indiana (5)
T8.
California (NA)
10.
Illinois (T18)
EXECUTIVE SURVEY BUSINESS CLIMATE RANKINGS
2022(2021 rank in parentheses)
1.
Tennessee (6)
2.
North Carolina (T2)
3.
Georgia (T2)
T4.
Texas (1)
T4.
Alabama (7)
6.
South Carolina (5)
T7.
Ohio (T10)
T7.
Indiana (9)
T9.
Arizona (NA)
T9.
Florida (T2)
SITE SELECTORS’ TOP LOCATION CRITERIA FOR 2022(2021 rank in parentheses)
1.
Workforce skills (1)
T2.
State and local tax scheme (T7)
T2.
Workforce development (T3)
4.
Transportation Infrastructure (2)
5.
Ease of permitting and regulatory procedures (T3)
T6.
Land/building prices and supply (T9)
T6.
Utilities (cost, reliability) (5)
T8.
Incentives (NA)
T8.
Higher education resources (T7)
T8.
Quality of Life (NA)
Source: Site Selection survey of corporate site
selectors, October 2022
Top States by Total FTZ Economic
Impact(2021 rank in parentheses)
