< PreviousEASTERN EUROPE & CENTRAL ASIATop Cities 1 Budapest Metro Area, Hungary 2 Warsaw Metro Area, Poland 3 Wroclaw, Poland 4 Gdansk-Gdynia-Sopot Metro Area, Poland 5 Krakow Metro Area, PolandCompany Metro Area Country Inv. US $Million JobsGE SSC Budapest Hungary 71 2,000Domuss Sia Riga Latvia 52 Whirlpool Corp. Lodz Poland 49 130Broad Street Capital Group Budapest Hungary 33 126HB Reavis Budapest Hungary 28 275Selected Corporate Facilities Investments, 2015-2017BUSINESS & FINANCIAL SERVICES28 2018 W O R L D ’ S M O S T C O M P E T I T I V E C I T I E SAs of Q1 2018, a total of 1,236 BPO, SSC, IT and R&D services centers were operating in Poland, employing 279,000, with 91 of them having launched since Q1 2017. Poland’s Tier-1 locations of Kraków, Warsaw and Wrocław represented 40%. Of the 831 companies with their own services centers, 10% were Fortune Global 500 companies. SOURCE: ASSOCIATION OF BUSINESS SERVICE LEADERS OF POLANDBUSINESS & FINANCIAL SERVICESASIA PACIFICCompany Metro Area Country Inv. US $Million JobsDeutsche Post AG Delhi National Capital Region India 283 HSBC Holdings PLC Kuala Lumpur / Klang Valley Malaysia 250 Ping An Insurance (Group) Company Of China Ltd. Nanjing China 218 Airtrunk Pte. Ltd. Sydney Australia 161 Roche Holding AG Shanghai China 136 Selected Corporate Facilities Investments, 2015-2017Top Cities 1 Manila Metro Area, Philippines 2 Sydney Metro Area, Australia 3 Pune Metro Area, India 3 Kuala Lumpur / Klang Valley Metro Area, Malaysia 3 Singapore, Singapore 2018 W O R L D ’ S M O S T C O M P E T I T I V E C I T I E S 29The IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) aims for the industry to grow by 100,000 new jobs per year for the next fi ve years, approaching 1.8 million employed by 2022.NORTH AMERICABUSINESS & FINANCIAL SERVICESCompanyMetro AreaCountryInv. US $MillionJobsConvergys Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN United States 820 Sunera LLC Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL United States 785 41Centene Corp. St. Louis, MO-IL United States 755 1,000Cyrusone Inc. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI United States 700 Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. Toledo, OH United States 700 700Selected Corporate Facilities Investments, 2015-2017Top Cities 1 Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI, USA 2 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA, USA 3 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX, USA 4 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD, USA 5 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, USA30 2018 W O R L D ’ S M O S T C O M P E T I T I V E C I T I E S664136353330292922212020201919ChicagoSingaporeHoustonPittburghShanghaiIndianapolisColumbusLouisvilleDurhamDublinBengaluruCincinnatiTampaPhiladelphiaSaint LouisTop 15 Cities for R&D or HQ Projects, 2015 -PresentLATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEANBUSINESS & FINANCIAL SERVICESCompany Metro Area Country Inv. US $Million JobsBbva Banco Francés Buenos Aires Argentina 221 Technicolor Tlaquepaque Mexico 50 80Acquire Bpo Pty Ltd. Santo Domingo Dominican Republic 30 Nr Finance México, S.A. De C.V., Sofom, E.R. Aguascalientes Mexico 21 Citigroup Inc. Alajuela Costa Rica 12 596Selected Corporate Facilities Investments, 2015-2017Top Cities 1 La Libertad, El Salvador 1 San Jose-Heredia Metro Area, Costa Rica 3 Tlaquepaque, Mexico 2018 W O R L D ’ S M O S T C O M P E T I T I V E C I T I E S 31Boasting 30% growth from 2010-2015 and 9% growth in 2016, the business services sector in El Salvador accounts for 27,000 jobs. As of the 1st trimester of 2018, fi nance and insurance accounted for $3.1B of the country’s FDI stock of $9.6B.SOURCE: EXPORT AND INVESTMENT PROMOTION AGENCY OF EL SALVADOR (PROESA), AUGUST 2018BUSINESS & FINANCIAL SERVICESAFRICA & MIDDLE EASTCompany Metro Area Country Inv. US $Million JobsNew Port Project Steering Committee Doha Qatar 439 Commercial Bank Of Ethiopia Addis Ababa Ethiopia 267 Delta Group Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman United Arab Emirates 200 Attijariwafa Bank Casablanca Morocco 101 Schmidt Group GmbH Al Hadd Bahrain 20 100Selected Corporate Facilities Investments, 2015-2017Top Cities 1 Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman Metro Area, UAE 2 Nairobi Metro Area, Kenya32 2018 W O R L D ’ S M O S T C O M P E T I T I V E C I T I E SAmong the world’s 50 costliest o ce markets, Dubai showed the greatest year-over-year decrease (-15.4 percent). SOURCE: CBRE PRIME OFFICE OCCUPANCY COSTS, JUNE 2018DUBAI-SHARJAH-AJMANUAEPHOTO: GETTY IMAGESSECTOR LEADER IN:ore than hospitality projects worth upwards of billion were under construction in ubai in early as the emirates hosting of Expo 2020 rapidly approached. But Dubai’s leaders are thinking much longer term on behalf of the emirate’s 3 million people.After all, that number — representing a tripling of people since 2000 — is expected to keep growing at a rate of 5 percent annually over the next decade, largely fueled by expats lured by tax-free income, luxury and yes, new opportunities in fi elds other than oil & gas.As CBRE Residential’s 2017 Global Living study reported, “transport, trade, tourism, real estate, fi nance and its port industry are now the largest contributors to GDP, which is expected to grow by close to 3.3 percent in 2017.”In July, DP World and Zhejiang China Commodities City Group signed an agreement to construct a 3-million-sq.-m. (32-million-sq.-ft.) “Traders Market” at DP World’s fl agship Jebel Ali Port and Free Zone in Dubai.“Apart from promoting the Chinese government’s Belt and Road initiative, the ‘Traders Market’ will help Chinese, local and international manufacturers benefi t from Dubai’s strategic location as a business and trade hub,” said DP World. China was Dubai’s top trading partner in 2017, with total trade worth the equivalent of US$48 billion.Entrepreneurs are part of the new Dubai recipe too: Recent analysis by Oxford Business Group says, “small-scale businesses account for 47 percent of the emirate’s GDP and provide employment for 52.4 percent of its active workforce,” according to the Dubai Statistics Centre.Other sectors rising to the fore include solar power (part of Dubai's Clean Energy Strategy 2050) and e-commerce. Amazon acquired Dubai-based e-commerce leader SOUQ.com in late 2017. e Middle East, says McKinsey & Co., “is on the verge of a massive digital disruption" as digital payment systems make headway.“ e SOUQ acquisition gave the green light for a lot of the venture capitalists in the region to get very excited about this space and start to invest in startups that are based on an e-commerce model,” Mustafa Ahmed, founder and CEO of digital startup consultancy Ascend E-Ventures, told Site Selection Senior Editor Gary Daughters.SOUQ.com founder Ronaldo Mouchawar said e-commerce in the Middle East is currently growing at 45 percent a year, and predicted annual online sales will increase from $3 billion today to $70 billion within the next decade.Adam BrunsSite SelectionMagazine 25.2721° N55.3113° Eelev. -36 ft.UAEUTC+41st1st2nd1st1st1st1st 2018 W O R L D ’ S M O S T C O M P E T I T I V E C I T I E S 33CHEMICALS & PL AS TICSike energy, the global chemicals & plastics fi eld seems to touch every other fi eld. Take the niche of plastic pipe, for example: Market research fi rm Lucintel projects that opportunities in sectors from water/wastewater to agriculture to telecommunications and power will drive global market growth at an annual rate of more than 6 percent from now to 2023, reaching $87 billion. e European Chemical Industry Council projects the chemical and materials sectors will nearly double their 2016 sales to €6.3 trillion (US$7.1 trillion) by 2030. Like most other sectors, the industry centroid is shifting decidedly to the East to support massive infrastructure and manufacturing initiatives, notes the World Economic Forum. But there’s no denying the positive eff ects of the U.S. shale boom in cultivating the early stages of a plastics & chemicals supply chain renaissance from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes.“Shale production in the U.S. continues to drive a restructuring in the chemicals industry by reducing the cost of producing products such as ethylene,” observes Oxford Economics’ Dan Levine. “ is is giving the United States a competitive advantage in terms of cost, and is helping to attract signifi cant new investments. In addition, European competitiveness in this sector is weakening relative to the United States as oil prices rise relative to natural gas.”As trade policy battles escalate, the sector is vulnerable to getting caught in the crossfi re.“Upstream basic chemical products are highly traded goods and therefore susceptible to changes in trade policy,” says Levine. “For example, chemical products frequently trade multiple times during the manufacturing process and often across borders. Hence changes to NAFTA or Brexit (each a concern as of the writing of this report) pose signifi cant risks to the industry. Still, within the United States, more relaxed environmental standards being pushed by the Trump administration will likely improve the competitiveness of the chemicals sector at large.”By and large, major chemicals and plastics plants avoid locating in cities, but they’re still in the orbit of the metro areas this report evaluates, from the top three Asia-Pacifi c markets of Suzhou, Shanghai and Chengdu to world region leaders such as Dubai and Dammam; the Polish cities of Katowice, Warsaw and Lodz; Campinas, Monterrey and Bogotá in Latin America; Berlin, Frankfurt and Yorkshire in Western Europe; and Chicago, Houston and Detroit in North America.Where next? “Rising middle-class incomes in important emerging markets are generating considerable demand for higher-value-added chemical products such as perfumes and cosmetics,” says Oxford’s Levine. “As a result, production and research facilities are opening in places such as India, South Africa and Korea. In more advanced markets such as the U.S., EU and Singapore, big players in the cosmetics industry are increasingly partnering with local start-ups.”34 2018 W O R L D ’ S M O S T C O M P E T I T I V E C I T I E SEASTERN EUROPE & CENTRAL ASIACHEMICALS & PLASTICSTop Cities 1 Katowice Metro Area, Poland 2 Warsaw Metro Area, Poland 2 Lodz Metro Area, Poland 4 Skopje, Macedonia 4 Bucharest Metro Area, Romania 4 Budapest Metro Area, Hungary 4 Nyiregyhaza, HungaryCompany Metro Area Country Inv. US $Million JobsToyo Engineering Corp. Kiyanly Turkmenistan 3,400 1,300Kondensat, Ao Aksai Kazakhstan 3,000 600United Chemical Co. LLP Almaty Kazakhstan 1,575 Mitsubishi Corp./Gap Instaat Yatirim Ve Dis Ticaret Garabogaz Turkmenistan 1,300 Maire Tecnimont SPA Kemerovo Russia 1,275 Selected Corporate Facilities Investments, 2015-2017Poland was No. 1 in the Eastern Europe cohort of the EU-28 in chemical export growth from 2007 to 2017, doubling from nearly €2.4B to €4.8B with an average annual increase in value of 7.3%.Source: Eurostat, August 2018 2018 W O R L D ’ S M O S T C O M P E T I T I V E C I T I E S 35WESTERN EUROPECHEMICALS & PLASTICSTop Cities 1 Berlin/Brandenburg Metro Area, Germany 2 Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metro Area, Germany 3 East Riding of Yorkshire, UK 4 Limerick, Ireland 5 Munich, Germany 5 Zurich Metro Area, Swiss ConfederationCompany Metro Area Country Inv. US $Million JobsSunshine Kaidi New Energy Group Co., Ltd. Kemi Finland 1,102 BASF SE Ludwigshafen am Rhein Germany 1,069 200Urenco Ltd. Chester United Kingdom 612 Yara International ASA Porsgrunn Norway 350 Michelin Tyre PLC Cebazat France 315 1,700Selected Corporate Facilities Investments, 2015-2017The value of Germany’s chemicals exports outside the EU-28 nearly doubled from €45.4B in 2007 to €89.1B in 2017, representing 27 percent of all EU chemicals exports.36 2018 W O R L D ’ S M O S T C O M P E T I T I V E C I T I E S 2018 W O R L D ’ S M O S T C O M P E T I T I V E C I T I E S 37BERLIN/BRANDENBURGPHOTO: GETTY IMAGESSECTOR LEADER IN:he Berlin-Brandenburg metro area excels across nine industry sectors, earning its place among the World’s Most Competitive Cities. High-tech services are a particular strength of the German capital, and Berlin has long had a reputation as a cosmopolitan, creative hub that helps attract students and young professionals to the region. Home to more than 50 universities, the region’s working-age population is highly educated, adding to its appeal to employers. e population of the German Capital Region grew by close to 4 percent between 2011 and 2015. ere is a lively startup scene in Berlin, which is a leading hub for European entrepreneurship. e majority of the top 100 German fi rms that received venture capital investments based their operations in Berlin in 2017, according to Ernst and Young.Exceptionally strong activity in 2017 indicates that investors continue to fi nd opportunities in the region. One example is Delivery Hero, a food ordering service founded in 2011 and based in Berlin that has used venture funds to expand into international markets and successfully went public in June 2017.In a 2017 PriceWaterhouseCoopers survey of German startups, more than 80 percent of respondents expected Berlin would grow in importance as a startup hub. ere is variation within the region, with 117 new business starts per 10,000 people in Berlin in 2017 placing it at the top of a ranking of German states, while entrepreneurship in Brandenburg trailed with 53 new starts per 10,000.However, strong manufacturing clusters in the metals, chemicals, food, and transportation industries anchor the Brandenburg economy. Rolls-Royce manufactures aircraft engines in Brandenburg, while Bombardier builds trains and Mercedes-Benz makes vans.Public administration is a key source of employment in the capital and accounted for 24 percent of the GDP in 2016. In addition to many German ministry research departments, Berlin is home to prestigious non-governmental, nonprofi t research institutions — including multiple locations of the Max Plank Society for the Advancement of Science, the Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research and the Leibniz Association. is analysis draws on the report Best-Performing Cities Europe 2017, Milken Institute (2017)Minoli RatnatungaMilken InstituteGERMANY52.5244° N13.4105° Eelev. 112 ft.CESUTC+12nd1st3rd2nd1st1st2nd1st4thNext >