NATIONAL MAGAZINE RANKS WEST VIRGINIA 8TH FOR ATTRACTING AND RETAINING NEW BUSINESS
Expansion Management also praises three West Virginia metro areas

West Virginia is among the nation’s leaders when it comes to attracting businesses the last eight years, according to an extensive study completed by Expansion Management magazine and the National Policy Research Council.

The state ranks 8th among all 50 states and three West Virginia cities are among the top 20 small metro areas for business recruitment and attraction in the study which was published in this month’s edition of the magazine. Charleston was ranked 8th, Parkersburg, 14th, and Wheeling, 17th. Also, Arlington, Va., which is part of the Washington-Virginia-West Virginia metropolitan statistical area, was ranked 20th for top small counties for recruitment and attraction.

Gov. Joe Manchin said the state’s high rankings illustrate that the state’s business climate has witnessed dramatic improvements in recent years and it’s making a difference in how companies perceive West Virginia. “This study provides substantive, statistical evidence of what we’ve been talking about: West Virginia is truly ‘open for business,’” Manchin said. “There’s no better indicator of that than the actual companies that have located here and succeeded here and this study reflects that.”

According to Bill King, chief editor of Expansion Management, the rankings are based on the number of businesses that relocated to another market and the number of branches opened during the most recent eight-year period that still survive today, as a percent of all business establishments in the market.

The study uses the National Policy Research Council’s interactive database of 19 million companies. The editorial focus of Expansion Management is to provide information that helps business leaders evaluate potential locations, while NPRC is a non-partisan think tank dedicated to serving state and local policymakers.

In an introduction to the rankings, King said for the metropolitan statistical areas and counties that ranked high in this study, it represents the best of all possible validation that their local economies are on the right track. “To put this into perspective, it is important to note that there are 362 metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) and 3,141 counties in the United States, so making this list puts these locations in pretty rarified atmosphere,” he writes in the article.

“In a very real sense, this is a reflection of the marketplace at work, only in this case, the market is making buy-no buy decisions where the product is cities and towns as a good place to establish one of your company’s operating facilities,” King wrote.

Manchin emphasized that the study points out that government can have a positive role in recruiting businesses. “West Virginia is a profitable place to locate and expand your business and we’re going to continue our efforts to push forward to make it even better.”

More information about the study and a complete listing of rankings is available at the magazine’s Web site, http://www.expansionmanagement.com/.