By Staff
April 17, 2015
BURLINGTON,ON
Burlington has gone from being the best mid-sized city in Canada to one of the top 10 “Small American Cities of the Future” for Business Friendliness.
You know what this means – for the next several months you will hear this touted by every member of Council with the Mayor becoming the biggest booster.
Prime Minister checks out the product at Ecysynthetix, one of the high tech manufacturers in the city. CEO John van Leeuwen is on the left. MP Mike Wallace is on the far right.
On Monday, fDi Magazine announced the winners of this award: For the Business Friendliness category, Burlington was evaluated using criteria such as the number of companies in the advanced manufacturing and technology sectors, the number of days needed to start a business, ease of doing business, economic freedom, credit rating and annual jobs creation.
Data was collected from more than 400 regions throughout North America and compared using the categories of Economic Potential, Business Friendliness, Human Capital, Cost Effectiveness and Connectivity.
“Burlington is well positioned as an economic centre with its prime location in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area,” said Burlington Mayor Rick Goldring. “We also have a talent pool of approximately two million people to draw from within a 45-minute commute. Those factors, combined with the recent redevelopment of the Burlington Economic Development Corporation, add up to a bright future for economic development in our city.”
Dave McPhail looks over a data collection device that Memmex created to change the way data is collected on a shop floor and placed in the hands of management in real time.
“Burlington Economic Development Corporation is committed to bringing real value to our business community. Support for relocation and expansion is critical as is our active and connected business culture,” said Frank McKeown, Executive Director of the Burlington Economic Development Corporation. “Burlington is already recognized as one of the best places to live and raise a family in Canada and we will continue to work to make Burlington one of the very best places to do business. Hopefully this recognition is the first of many.”
Windsor, Waterloo and Cambridge were also named in the top 10 “Small American Cities of the Future.” Reflecting the strong business sectors in the province, a number of other Ontario communities also received recognition in other categories.
fDi Intelligence is a dedicated unit of The Financial Times that provides industry leading insight and analysis on foreign direct investment. The winners of the “American Cities of the Future” were published in fDi Magazine as part of the “Locations of the Future” series, which is presented by fDi Magazine to showcase the most promising locations for foreign direct investment.
This is all really good stuff – but we have to stop talking about it and actually doing it.
Thordon Bearings Inc., operates a state-of-the-art polymer processing plant as well as in-house design, CAD and New Product Development facilities in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
There are some exceptionally good ideas coming out of the Economic development Corporation and the work they are doing with McMaster University and the Fraunhofer Institute that is working closely with both the university and the city.
More on that next week when the Gazette publishes an exclusive feature on the economic development potential – think in terms of 20,000 additional jobs – yes, that is the number that was used. Stay tuned
