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"Acting on Global Trends: A McKinsey Global Survey" finds that many companies don’t act on them at all ... even when they deem them important. For instance, though 63 percent of the 3,693 responding executives view consumers in emerging markets as a future source of profits, but only 41 percent say their companies have pursued this opportunity.
Tracking the single indicator of employment growth, Inc. has published its "Boomtowns 2007: Best Cities for Business" report. Its top cities within their respective work-force populations are Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev. (large cities); Cape Coral-Ft. Myers, Fla. (midsize); and St. George, Utah (small). Those who prefer a thicker index of indicators will note the presence of a select few Boomtowns among Site Selection’s 2006 Top Metro areas, measured by project attraction. They included Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.; Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Houston-Baytown-Sugar Land, Texas; Raleigh-Cary, N.C.; McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas; and Auburn-Opelika, Ala. Some of those communities in turn appear in Forbes’ annual "Best Places for Business," published April 23, which named the following Top 10:
Also, the following locations were listed as the winners in these categories:
"Plugging in: EU funds and technology in the EU’s new member states," an April report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, says funding for the "EU-10" new member states will nearly double between now and 2013 for most of them, and grow by an even greater amount in its newest member states, Bulgaria and Romania. "The EU10 are eligible for over €175bn (US$233bn at forecast average 2007 exchange rate) in structural funding in 2007-13, or almost €2,000 (US$2,660) per capita, " says the report. The findings jibe with Site Selection’s reporting in its March 2007 issue, which noted in particular the funds still available to projects in the more established new-member economies of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In the meantime, the EU is doing what it can to lower barriers as well as raise competitiveness: In early May, EU ministers agreed to cut aluminum import tariffs from 6 percent to 3 percent, and consider doing away with them altogether. The move is expected to help eastern European automotive companies, for one, import Russian aluminum. But it may also help incipient projects from the likes of Alcoa in Iceland, a country whose aluminum exports to the EU in 2006 totaled $440 million. You can find more in the EU’s spring economic forecast, released May 7.
Speaking of getting your hands on cash, Milken Institute in December 2006 published "Capital Access Index 2006: Best Markets for Business Finance," which ranks 122 countries around the world in terms of the financial infrastructures that support entrepreneurial activity by providing access to capital. The Capital Access Index top 10 markets (with 2005 rankings):
The Economist Intelligence Unit also releases an annual white paper ranking 68 nations’ "e-readiness," defined as "the "state of play" of a country’s information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and the ability of its consumers, businesses and governments to use ICT to their benefit." Denmark won the 2006 race, followed by the U.S., Switzerland, Sweden and the U.K. The complete report breaks things down by country and criterion.
Close readers of this space may remember our noting the launch of innovative business magazine The American in December. For evidence it has the interests of corporate real estate in its veins, reach this article from its January-February 2007 issue on how U.S. corporate taxation is driving business away. That same issue contains one of two recently published accounts of the economic and cultural significance behind the new $4-billion Beijing-to-Lhasa railway. The other appeared in The New Yorker in April.
"Getting Our Money’s Worth?: An Evaluation of the Economic Model Used for Awarding State Business Subsidies" is a new report on the CDFA Web site, published in March 2007 by the North Carolina Center for Justice and the Corporation for Enterprise Development. In the same month, Good Jobs First and the University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Urban Economic Development published "The Ideal Deal: How Local Governments Can Get More for Their Economic Development Dollar."
The March 2007 "Global Workforce Summit: Focus on the Asia-Pacific" was hosted in Shanghai by Worldwide ERC®, a membership association for over 13,000 professionals who manage or service a mobile work force. Among its findings and recommendations:
Inquiring minds may be surprised by the findings of a February 2007 report from the Public Policy Institute of California on the effects of immigrants on the state’s employment and wages.
For a quick read on which states rank where in terms of workers’ compensation premium index rates, the Oregon Dept. of Consumer and Business Services did everyone, including themselves, a favor with these October 2006 rankings
Anyone interested in real estate legislation and private land ownership now has a new publication to check out: The Land Report , focused on the daily issues of concern to private individual landowners. -- Adam Bruns
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