Photo: www.siteselection.com
Site Selection presented its sixth annual "Best to Invest rankings of nations" and metro areas for investment-attraction activity in 2013. The national Investment Promotion Agencies and metro areas recognized here, were particularly successful in 2013 at attracting capital investment projects — both expansions of existing facilities and new projects — from investors at home and abroad.
Eastern Europe certainly falls in the list of attractive investment destinations. Bulgaria, as one of the most attractive ones, ranks fifth behind Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. The main advantages for our country are: attractive tax burden, low labor costs and membership in organizations such as the EU and NATO. Furthermore, the labor that is available in the labor market in Bulgaria is highly skilled using multiple languages. These facts turn our country into the top destination worldwide.
Site Selection’s proprietary New Plant Database is the foundation of several rankings of area economic development performance each year, including The Governors Cups, Top Competitive States and Top Business Climates. Measured solely by the number of qualified projects resident in the database, China ranks first globally (excluding the United States), with 235, followed by Germany (196) and the United Kingdom (187).
Fifty percent of the national Best to Invest rankings were based on growth in new facilities, capital investment and job creation using data from Conway Data’s New Plant database and from IBM-PLI’s database of new projects for calendar years 2012 and 2013. Each country was ranked on the total number of projects, investment and jobs created both as raw value and as a per capita value. The other 50 percent of the ranking was based on the Location Rank and Competitiveness Score resident in LocationSelector.com’s proprietary database using these factors: business costs, economic strength, infrastructure; regulatory burden; and tax rates. Additional bonus points were given to those countries that were ranked among the top 50 destination countries by jobs created as identified in IBM’s Global Locations Trends Report.
Site Selection congratulates the countries, national investment promotion agencies and metros recognized here for their success in attracting foreign direct investment in a global economy that remains lukewarm.
Capital investors only invest where they are confident they will earn a meaningful return, and these locations deliver that confidence.
Source: www.siteselection.com