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fDi: RVA a top U.S. mid-sized city for international investment

October 9, 2017

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At the annual International Economic Development Council’s conference, Richmond, Va., was ranked as one of the winners of the fDi Intelligence’s American Cities of the Future 2017/18 rankings. The publication, owned by the Financial Times, focuses on foreign direct investment — or FDI — into American communities.

“More than two-thirds of our projects are foreign direct investment,” said Barry Matherly, president and CEO of the Partnership. “This accolade solidifies the Richmond Region’s strength when it comes to international investment and will hopefully convince global companies to consider joining our region’s community of more than 200 internationally-owned businesses who are experiencing success.”

Richmond was named in the top three overall as a ‘Mid-Sized American City of the Future,’ and the highest ranked region in the United States. Among cities of its size, Richmond also ranked third in Economic Potential and seventh in Business Friendliness.

It’s not the first time fDi has shined a spotlight on RVA’s international program. We’ve been rewarded with similar rankings from the publication for the last 10 years.

“These type of rankings have piqued the interest of international firms that choose the region for U.S. operations — sometimes the company’s first office outside of their home country,” explained Matherly. “Companies such as Mavalerio, BGB Technologies and ProSeal America opened small facilities that have expanded after success stateside and we’re happy that the region’s attractive FDI offerings helped their decision.”

The region was shortlisted after data was collected analyzing 421 locations under five categories: Economic Potential, Business Friendliness, Human Capital and Lifestyle, Cost Effectiveness and Connectivity. Locations scored up to a maximum of 10 points for each data point, which were weighted by importance to the FDI decision-making process in order to compile both the subcategory rankings as well as the overall American Cities of the Future 2017/18 ranking.

‘Mid-sized’ locations had an immediate city population more than 200,000 and a wider Larger Urban Zone of more than 750,000 people, or an immediate city population of more than 350,000 people.