Big economic development wins that involve lots of real estate helped propel North Carolina to the top of a new list of best states in the country for business.
The Tar Heel State moved up from second place last year to supplant Virginia, which dropped to the third spot in CNBC’s annual ranking based on 10 categories. Washington state moved up to the No. 2 spot this year from No. 9 last year. Mississippi is last in the overall ranking this year but topped the category for states with the lowest cost of living.
“We’re going to continue to work with our state legislature, businesses, education leaders and employees to build the talented workforce and resilient infrastructure needed to support the high paying jobs of the next generation,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement.
CNBC used 88 metrics to come up with its ranking, the most the media outlet said it has used in the 15 years of creating the list. CoStar Group, the publisher of CoStar News, provided CNBC with real estate costs and availability data.
North Carolina ranked at the top in the economy category but in about the middle of the pack for business friendliness and cost of doing business. Missouri, No. 25 overall, is the top state for cost of doing business, while North Dakota, No. 13 overall, was the friendliest for business.
North Carolina’s ranking comes on the heels of winning billions of dollars of new investment in the state recently. Last year, the state said it had $10.1 billion in announced investments totaling more than 24,000 jobs.
At the end of last year, Japanese automaker Toyota announced a $1.29 billion investment to build its first electric vehicle battery plant in North America near Greensboro, with the promise of employing nearly 4,000 workers. The following month, drug and medical equipment maker Eli Lilly & Co. said it would make a $1 billion investment in a manufacturing plant outside Charlotte.
Singapore-based automaker VinFast announced in March that it would invest $2 billion in the Raleigh-Durham area to build electric vehicles and employ 7,500 workers.