North Carolina Named Nation’s ‘Top Business Climate’ For 5th Consecutive Year

RALEIGH, NC – North Carolina remains the state with the “Top Business Climate,” according to Site Selection magazine.  It is the fifth year in a row and the eighth time in nine years that the state has taken the top honor in the annual ranking by Site Selection, one of the nation’s premier magazines for economic development.

Site Selection Editor-in-Chief Mark Arend agreed that North Carolina’s winning streak “demonstrates that businesses are finding in the state what they need to succeed.” He added, “The synergy between North Carolina’s research parks, corporations, communities, and economic developers at the state and local levels is a major factor in this year’s top ranking.”

Site Selection magazine’s annual “Top Business Climate” rankings are based on quantitative and qualitative factors that corporate site-seekers – those who help companies expand or relocate – say they consider most important.  Fifty percent of the ranking comes from a survey of corporate site selection executives who were asked to rank their top 10 states, and 50 percent is based on four measures of new plant activity as tracked by Site Selection in its “New Plant Database.”  The magazine describes the ranking process as “a blend of objective, actual new or expansion project announcements, and subjective input from corporate site seekers.”