N.C. still rockin' when it comes to business

Gov. Beverly Perdue's office announced yesterday that for the ninth time in a decade, North Carolina has been named the state with the best climate for business "by the highly regarded Site Selection magazine."

As part of the ranking, the magazine surveys corporate executives that help businesses select new locations. This year, those executives ranked the Tar Heel state as the top for ease of doing business. The magazine cited Gov. Bev Perdue’s efforts to recruit business and create jobs.

“People across the state and many businesses around the country know that I’ll take any call and go anywhere to bring a business to our state or expand a business or create a small business in North Carolina,” Gov. Perdue said in the magazine’s cover story. “We have been very aggressive, and that has paid off.”

The accolades for the Tar Heel state led a columnist for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times to urge his state’s next governor to learn a lesson from North Carolina’s business climate.

“Other states deemed supreme in this country for their business climate already boast histories of intimately involved, gung-ho business governors. Exhibit 1 is North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue,” wrote Robert Trigaux, who went on to cite North Carolina’s repeated top rankings by Site Selection. “And a big reason North Carolina again dominated the survey is that Perdue, since taking office in 2009, has continued the Tar Heel State mantra of aggressively selling her state to the business world.”