Georgia Named Top State For Business For 10th Straight Year: Kemp

GEORGIA — For the 10th consecutive year, the Peach State has yet again been named the No. 1 state for business nationwide, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Tuesday.

The governor cited Area Development magazine's latest ranking, which identifies annually the top states for doing business. Georgia bested several states including South Carolina (No. 2) and Tennessee (No. 3) in the top 20.

"Every year, Area Development consults with a panel of experts whose careers are involved in location selection and economic development, asking them which states excel at these all-important characteristics," Area Development reported.

The overall top states list is comprised of the best performers in 14 individual rankings.

“As you look through the individual lists of what makes a state a great place to do business, you will find Georgia uniformly at or near the top of most of them,” Area Development Staff Editor Steve Kaelble said in a news release. “The state has carefully assembled most of the building blocks that location decision-makers are looking for, and that work translates into success on this ranking.”

Georgia placed in the top 10 in all of the individual categories, taking No. 1 in overall cost of doing business, business incentives programs, energy availability and costs, logistics and infrastructure and cooperative and responsive state government.

The Quick Start program, which offers job-specific training, earned Georgia the No. 1 slot on the workforce training programs list.

“For 10 straight years, the people who help businesses choose where to make long-term investments have repeatedly said Georgia is the best state in the nation for opportunity," Gov. Brian Kemp said in a news release.

“Despite the unprecedented challenges we've seen in recent years, men and women across Georgia continued putting in countless hours of hard work for their communities. Thanks to their efforts, we've brought record-breaking jobs and investments to all four corners of the state, especially to rural Georgia.”