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Show Salt Lake City tops the list for new business location By SCOTT SUMMERILL Fortune magazine ranked Salt Lake City at the top of its list of cities in which to set up business. The two most prominent reasons for the number one rating is the plentiful, plen-tiful, high quality, low cost labor and the willingness of state and local officials to work with new companies. The list was derived from information infor-mation gathered in the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. by Moran Stahl & Boyer, a corporate relocation consulting firm. Some of the categories studied include availability of workers, unemployment unemploy-ment rates, changes in annual wages and employment growth versus expansion ex-pansion of the local labor market. Utah officials attribute much of the ranking to the governor's recently re-cently implemented blueprint for economic development, and a highly educated work force. Executive Director of the state's Department of Community and Economic Development Stanley Parrish said Utah's work force is one of the most educated in the nation, and their strong work ethics add to the attractiveness to companies com-panies thinking or relocating in Utah. "Gov. Bangerter has developed an economic blueprint for Utah's future that focuses on Utah's well educated, productive work force," he said. "Our ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life all Utahns enjoy by raising average family incomes to the national level by 1995." Parrish further pointed out that the 'blueprint' includes forming partnerships between government agencies and private enterprises. Fortune reported that Utah's literacy lit-eracy rate is the highest in the nation. And, with 64 percent of the nation's top executives claiming education should be the most important im-portant line of focus to improving the nation's work force, Utahns stood above the rest of the cities polled. In addition. Fortune classified Utah's tax rate as moderate, which allows the state to maintain an AAA bond rating. According to Director of the Utah Division of Business and Economic Development Kirk Green, the Fortune report probably won't have an immediate impact on incoming business traffic in Utah. But, "Utah is likely to be given more consideration and closer review by companies seriously considering con-sidering expansion in the future," he said. |