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Contact: Alan Fogg, afogg@fceda.org,
703-790-0600 (office) or 571-213-5065 (mobile)
Virginia wins Forbes.com and CNBC rankings as best state for business
Fairfax County leads state in economic performance
Fairfax County, Virginia USA, July
17, 2007 – Forbes.com and CNBC have ranked
Virginia the best U.S. state for business.
Forbes.com, the online arm of Forbes magazine, examined states
in six categories: business and living costs; job and income
growth; business climate; educational attainment; venture capital
investment; and quality of life. Virginia finished in the top
10 in four of the categories. Utah, North Carolina, Texas and
Washington rounded out the top five states.
Financial news cable channel CNBC used data on 40 measures
of competitiveness including cost of doing business, quality
of life, technology and innovation, business friendliness,
and access to capital. CNBC’s top five also included
Texas, Utah, Georgia and North Carolina.
“These rankings are a good indicator of the emphasis
that states put on a strong business climate, and Fairfax County
benefits from the pro-business atmosphere that Virginia leaders
created,” said Gerald L. Gordon, Ph.D., president and
CEO of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. “At
the same time, Virginia benefits from Fairfax County’s
prominence and attractiveness to companies especially in high-paying
and creative technology and professional services fields.”
As the locality with the largest business community in Virginia,
Fairfax County plays a leading role in the economic vitality
of the Commonwealth. Fairfax County companies received 42 percent
of venture capital invested in Virginia in the first quarter
of this year. Fairfax County companies received almost
$11.7 billion in federal contracts in fiscal 2005, 31 percent
of Virginia’s total. Time magazine this year called
Fairfax County "one of the great success stories of our
time," and a U.S. Labor Department study called Fairfax
County the private-sector job-creation leader in the Washington,
D.C., area.
Fairfax County has seven Fortune 500 headquarters. It is
home to about 4,900 technology companies and 350 foreign-owned
businesses, seven of the 100 largest African American-owned
businesses in the U.S., and 12 of the 500 largest Hispanic-owned
companies in the nation. Fairfax County has 105 million square
feet of office space, making it one of the largest office markets
in the country.
Business growth helps Fairfax County, just outside Washington,
D.C., fund public services such as a top-ranked public school
system that improve the quality of life. Fairfax County will
host the 2007 National Conference on the Creative Economy (www.creativeeconomies.org)
in October.
The Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (www.FairfaxCountyEDA.org)
promotes Fairfax County as a business and technology center.
The FCEDA maintains marketing offices in Silicon Valley, Bangalore,
Frankfurt, London, Seoul and Tel Aviv.
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