Consultants Recognize States’ Industrial Competitiveness in Area Development Magazine’s 3rd Annual “Top States for Doing Business” Survey

WESTBURY, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Area Development, the leading publication covering site selection and facility planning, has announced the results of its 2012 Top States for Doing Business survey of leading location consultants. According to the results, the top-10 states for doing business are Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, Indiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma in that order.

Area Development asked a select group of highly respected location consultants who work with a nationwide client base to name their top-5 state choices in 14 site selection categories, as follows:

Business environment

• Overall cost of doing business

• Corporate tax environment

• Incentives programs

• Cooperative state government

• Speed of permitting

• Access to capital and project funding

Labor climate

• Availability of skilled labor

• Competitive labor costs
• Work force development programs

Infrastructure/global access

• Rail & highway accessibility

• Certified sites and shovel-ready programs

• Competitive utility rates

• Distribution/logistics hub access

Economy

• Leading in the economic recovery

States were ranked in each of the 14 categories above based on the number of times they were named as a “top-5” choice by the responding consultants. Texas, which was cited more than 200 times overall, significantly led all other states as the consultants’ #1 choice for doing business. The top-5 states were each mentioned in at least 8 of 14 categories.

A full review of this year’s Top States for Doing Business is presented in the Fall 2012 issue of Area Development magazine and is posted online at http://www.areadevelopment.com/Top-States-for-Doing-Business/Fall2012/top-states-consultants-survey-2012-landing-456337.shtml.

Area Development (www.areadevelopment.com), published since 1965, is bi-monthly and has 42,000 executive subscribers. It also has produced more than 25 Best Practices Consultants Forums for economic developers since 2006.