Consultants
Survey
Relative importance of incentives to
clients when making location decisions:
• Have always been of great importance
• Are more important now than in the past
• Are less important now than in the past
44%
44%
13%
chart Q
Which types of incentives do your clients consider
most important when making a location decision?
• Tax incentives
(tax credits, exemptions, etc.)
• Financial incentives
(grants, bonds, loans, etc.)
• Worker training incentives
• Other incentives (land, utility-rate
subsidies, infrastructure support, etc.)
46%
45%
15%
37%
chart R
Are the communities you have worked with
instituting investment and/or job creation criteria,
i.e., clawback provisions that must be met in order
for companies to receive incentives?
• Yes. This has always been the case.
• Yes. More are doing so now than
in the past.
• No.
56%
26%
18%
chart S
Which factors have you evaluated for recent
location or expansion projects that you found
to be most deficient?
• Labor availability
• Incentive closing funds
• Advanced ICT services
• Pre-qualified sites
• Other
22%
41%
6%
38%
6%
such as grants and bonds are considered most
important by their clients (Chart R). And a quarter
of the respondents said that more communities
than in the past are instituting criteria that must
be met in order for companies to receive the promised incentives (Chart S).
Additionally, 41 percent of the responding consultants said they have found incentives closing
funds to be the most deficient among the factors
recently evaluated for location or expansion projects (Chart T), with 78 percent of the respondents
saying that funds from the federal government’s
Stimulus Plan were having no effect on their
clients’ facility plans (Chart U).
The responding consultants ranked energy availability and costs seventh with an 89.7 percent rating
in importance. In response to a separate question,
42 percent of the respondents said energy costs
were affecting their clients’ facility operations, and
a quarter said they were affecting their clients’ supply/distribution network decisions (Chart V).
A related factor — inbound/outbound shipping costs
— is new to the list this year. The responding con-
sultants only ranked this factor 20th with a 67.5
percent importance rating. It should be noted that
the respondents to our Corporate Survey ranked
inbound/outbound-shipping costs tenth, with 81.7 rating
this factor as “very important” or “important.”
In a separate energy-related question, the con-
sultants were asked about the implications of
pending cap-and-trade legislation on their clients’
facility plans. Nearly half said the legislation was
having an effect, with 23 percent of the respon-
dents noting it was causing their clients to delay
scheduled investments, and nearly a fifth saying
the proposed legislation was making their clients
question the attractiveness of the United States for
investment (Chart W). Interestingly, more than 70
percent of the respondents to the Corporate Sur-
