Georgia Named Top State to do Business for Fifth Year in a Row

Georgia is getting high marks for being an attractive place for companies to locate.

For the fifth year in a row Area Development, a leading corporate site selection and facility planning publication, named Georgia the top state in the Country for doing business.

Governor Nathan Deal made the announcement recently with Area Development Publisher Dennis J. Shea.

In addition to being named the top state for business, Georgia also ranked first among the states for workforce development programs and cooperative and responsive state government.

Over the years, the Stephens County Development Authority has been extremely

successful in attracting major corporations from around the world to set up shop here.

Development Authority Executive Director Tim Martin says part of the reason for that is its attractive workforce development program which, in conjunction with North Georgia Technical College, produces a labor force that is ready to do the job.

“The number one consideration to many potential employers is, ‘where am I going to find my employees?’,” Martin said. “So, we have the Currahee Campus and we have the partnerships that we have with our existing industry, but we also have to recognize the great work our school system is doing to make sure our workforce is what it needs to be.”

Companies such as GEM Industries, Nifco KTW America, and others continue to grow and expand their businesses in Stephens County.

And Toccoa-Stephens County is increasingly becoming a favored site by filmmakers and has hosted the filming of five major movies over the last several years.

Martin says Toccoa-Stephens County works closely with national site developers to secure new businesses.

“We try to maintain very, very close relationships with the project managers that are selling the State of Georgia. We want to make sure that they understand that we have product that they can sell. We’re also very aggressively out there on various social media platforms making sure that we tell our story,” Martin said.

Area Development’s 2018 Top States for Doing Business rankings reflect the results of a recent survey that asked site consultants to name their top-state picks in 11 categories that relate to location and facility planning.

Some of those categories included, the overall cost of doing business, the corporate tax environment, business incentive programs, a competitive labor environment, and access to capital and project funding.

During fiscal 2018, the Georgia Department of Economic Development Global Commerce Division helped to create more than 27,000 new jobs through a record-breaking 419 expansion or relocation projects.

These projects amounted to $5.56 billion of investments in Georgia communities.