by Think Currituck, on 5/19/22 1:20 PM
For the second year in a row, the internationally acclaimed publication, Site Selection magazine, crowned the Tar Heel State as the winner of the annual Prosperity Cup. This award carries great significance and recognizes North Carolina’s efforts to recruit new businesses, while working with existing ones, to position the state as a breeding ground for economic success.
Generally speaking, candidates for the Prosperity Cup are evaluated in the following areas:
- State tax climate as ranked by the Tax Foundation.
- Performance in the 2021 Legatum Institute Prosperity Index.
- Number of national career readiness certificates per 1000 residents (ages 18-64).
- Total jobs created in previous calendar year and total new jobs per 1 million population.
- Total new and expanded facilities in the previous calendar year and the total amount of investment thereon.
Gary Daughters, Senior Editor of Site Selection, credits North Carolina’s “long-term planning, perseverance, adaptability, investment, and execution” as reasons for capturing the award yet again. “Clearly, this is not some blip,” he said; citing specific examples of economic development, such as "new projects totaling 185 business recruitments with a record-setting 24,224 new jobs created and some $10 billion in capital investment.”
Keys to Victory
The continued successes of several startups, including Epic Games (creators of Fortnite), Pendo, Spiffy, Biomason, and Printful, are representative of North Carolina’s healthy economic climate. Simultaneously, the state is on the forefront of the biotechnology industry, both in welcoming transplants from companies (like Hospira) and providing resources through state-sponsored initiatives (such as NCBiotech).
Furthermore, large corporations, of all varieties, are heading to North Carolina in droves for their latest expansion projects. Among those expansion announcements from 2021 are Kroger, Toyota, Nature’s Value, Red Bull, Ball Corporation, and many more.
RELATED READ: What made Currituck the fastest-growing county in North Carolina?
To learn more about Site Selection or the criteria for the Prosperity Cup award, visit www.siteselection.com.
