Virginia falls to 12th in business climate list

Published November 2, 2015 by Robert Powell, III

Virginia has dropped off Site Selection magazine’s list of top 10 states with the best business climates.

The Old Dominion slipped to 12th in the annual ranking. It has been among Site Selection's top 10 business climates ranking since 2007, ranking No. 10 last year.

Virginia’s decline on the Site Selection list comes at a time it also is falling in economic development rankings compiled by CNBC and Forbes.com.

Virginia also ranked 12th on the latest CNBC list where it ranked No. 1 in 2011. Virginia also was the top state in the Forbes.com list for four years, 2006-09, before fading to seventh this year.

Georgia ranked No. 1 on the Site Selection list for the third straight year. Also in the top 10 were North Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio, Utah, Oklahoma and Indiana.

Ranking ahead of Virginia at 11tth was Florida. Behind the Old Dominion were South Carolina and Alabama.

Fifty percent of the business climate ranking is based on a survey of corporate site selection officials. They rank the states based on their recent experiences in locating facilities.

The other 50 percent is based on an index of seven criteria, including competitiveness, tax burdens on new and mature companies, new plant facilities in 2014, new 2014 facilities per capita, total 2015 projects to date and 2015 projects per capita.

Virginia garnered a total of 491 points, compared to Georgia’s 601 points.

The commonwealth ranked fourth in snaring new projects through this August and eighth in 2015 projects per capita. In most other categories, the commonwealth ranked from 11th to 18th. However, Virginia ranked 39th in having a favorable tax burden for new firms.