|
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
| |
|
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
LED RANKED SECOND BEST PERFORMING STATE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGENCY IN THE U.S.Leading economic development publication recognizes LED for first timeYesterday, Site Selection magazine announced its 2009 Competitiveness Awards, which recognize excellence on the part of state-level economic development groups. According to Site Selection, Louisiana Economic Development appeared in the ranking's top 10 for the first time, placing second best. Virginia Economic Development Partnership, with 410 points based on Site Selection's quantitative ranking criteria, edged out LED (393 points) for the top spot. Texas (392), Tennessee (375) and Pennsylvania (371) rounded out the top five, respectively. "Since day one we have made economic development our top priority," said Gov. Bobby Jindal. "From cutting business taxes to strengthening ethics laws to reforming workforce development programs, we have been aggressively positioning Louisiana's economy to outperform the South and the U.S. on a regular basis. Without question, we have made incredible progress in increasing Louisiana's economic competitiveness, and we're going to stay focused and keep working hard so that we can position our state to consistently show up among the top states in economic development rankings, and more importantly, create even more good jobs for our people." Since January 2008, LED has secured business development projects that create more than 35,000 new direct and indirect jobs and more than $4.6 billion in new capital investment. Last year Southern Business & Development magazine named Louisiana Co-state of the Year (along with Tennessee) for having more significant business development wins per capita than any other Southern state. "Our goal from the start has been to transform LED into one of the top three state economic development agencies in the U.S., so we're obviously delighted to receive this recognition from Site Selection," said LED Secretary Stephen Moret. "We are especially grateful and fortunate that Gov. Jindal and the Legislature have provided us the new tools necessary to secure this terrific outcome, including our Business Expansion and Retention Group, the Louisiana FastStart™ program and the State Economic Competitiveness Group, as well as continued support for the Rapid Response Fund and Mega Project Development Fund." The Site Selection rankings calculate the total points a state-level economic development agency received based mainly on Conway Data Inc.'s New Plant Database of new and expanded facilities. The following 10 criteria were used in the indexing system: • Total new and expanded facilities in 2009 • Total new and expanded facilities in 2009 per 1 million population • Total capital investment in new and expanded facilities in 2009 • Total capital investment in new and expanded facilities per 1 million population in 2009 • Total new jobs created in 2009 • Total new jobs created in 2009 per 1 million population • Rank in the corporate real estate executive portion of the 2009 Site Selection Business Climate Ranking • State Gross Domestic Product per 1 million population • State unemployment rate February 2010 • Business Incubation Index component of the Beacon Hill Institute's State Competitiveness Report for 2009 Site Selection magazine, published by Conway Data Inc., delivers expansion planning information to 44,000 executives of fast-growing firms. Now in its 56th year, Site Selection is also the official publication of the Industrial Asset Management Council. Source: 2010 Louisiana Economic Development Discuss it on SBE Forum >> |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
|
All Rights Reserved |
