Texas Claims Top State Business Climate for 2023

Atlanta, November 1, 2023:


  Site Selection magazine has named Texas the state with the
Top Business Climate in
the U.S. The state heads the list of top 25 state business climates published in the
November 2023 issue of the magazine, followed by perennial top-shelf competitors Georgia,
Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio, 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. Tennessee, Illinois, Florida, California and New
York round out the top 10.

The executive survey portion of this year’s rankings has Texas No. 1, followed by North
Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.

“Having won Site Selection’s Governor’s Cup for total capital investment projects in 2022
earlier this year, Texas for the second time in 2023 is demonstrating that it has in place
what businesses look for most when expanding or relocating,” says Site Selection’s Mark
Arend. “We congratulate the state level and local economic developers throughout Texas for
working to cultivate a business climate that is the best in the U.S.”

In the “What Matters Most” survey of site selectors published with the rankings — perhaps
reflecting the overlapping trends of reshoring of manufacturing, EV/battery plants and
ramped-up semiconductor industry investment — ease of permitting and regulatory procedures
jumped from the No. 5 criterion to No. 1 this year. Next most important was workforce
skills (No. 1 last year), followed by land/building prices and supply, utilities cost and
reliability, and quality of life.

The overall

Business Climate Ranking is based on the following list of criteria: 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 2022 cumulative
and per capita, Conway Data Projects Database; total projects 2023 YTD cumulative and per
capita; 2023 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. 2023; CNBC America’s Top States for Business 2023; Cyberstates 2023
tech employment and % of overall employment; bipartisan infrastructure bill
projects/funding as of Sept. 2023 (GSA).

Top FTZs,

Top Ohio River Corridor Metros

The November 2023 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, San Jose’s FTZ 18 in California is No. 1, followed by the Port of South
Louisiana’s FTZ 124 in Gramercy at No.
2 and the Port of Houston Authority’s FTZ 84 in Harris County, Texas, at No. 3. Again this
year, with five FTZs among
the top 20 and ties, Texas leads the list of Top 10 States by FTZ Impact, followed by
Louisiana, California, South
Carolina and Tennessee, repeating last year’s top five. The feature also includes coverage
of international ports (many
of them affiliated with special economic zones) from the Container Port Performance Index
(CPPI) produced by World Bank
in collaboration with the Global Intelligence & Analytics division of S&P Global Market
Intelligence, and global
maritime centers from the Xinhua-Baltic International Shipping Centre Development Index
(ISCDI) Report.

The November 2023 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 region of
Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky-Indiana, finished No. 1, followed by upstart
Weirton-Steubenville, West Virginia-Ohio, at No. 2 and Cincinnati, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana
at No. 3.

Site Selection magazine, the leading publication covering global corporate real estate
strategy and economic development, is in its 70th year of publication, and goes to a
qualified circulation of more than 41,000* corporate end users, 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, Project
Bulletin and Snapshot newsletters, 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 corporate real estate
executives, economic developers and commercial real estate service providers.

*June 2023; all circulation information is publisher’s own data unless otherwise
specified.

TOP 10 STATE BUSINESS CLIMATES 2023

(2022 rank in parentheses)

EXECUTIVE SURVEY BUSINESS CLIMATE RANKINGS 2023

(2022 rank in parentheses)

SITE SELECTORS’ TOP LOCATION CRITERIA FOR 2023

(2022 rank in parentheses)

Source: Site Selection survey of corporate site selectors, October 2023

Top States by Total FTZ Economic Impact

(2022 rank in parentheses)