Reading is Best Micro City for Infrastructure

FDI magazine - the well respected publication which focuses on the global business of Foreign Direct Investment - has named Reading the Best Micro City for Infrastructure 2010/11. 

The Micro European City of the Future 2010/11 Award went to Eindhoven in the Netherlands, primarily due to its high positions in the categories of economic potential and business friendliness. In the same destination category, Reading claimed Best Micro City for Infrastructure, while Monaco achieved Best Micro City for Quality of Life. Reading was ranked the 8th best Micro City overall.

The UK’s South East was awarded FDI Magazine’s European Region of the Future 2010/11, (60% of the South East’s Inward Investment lands in the Thames Valley area and of that figure 60% choose the Greater Reading area) followed by Ile-de-France and Nordrhein-Westfalen in Germany. FDI Magazine’s independent judging panel recognised Flanders as the Best European Region for FDI Strategy.

The UK’s South East also claimed the award for the Best Northern European Region of the Future, followed by the Capital Region of Denmark in second place and Scotland in third. The Best FDI Strategy in Northern Europe category was dominated by UK regions, with Yorkshire and Humberside ranking second, followed by Scotland and Thames Valley ranking third and fourth, respectively.
 

What Defines Infrastructure?
• Number of international
  destinations served
• Upload speed
• Download speed
• Number of ports
• Type of port
• Size of port
• Airlines served
• Number of terminals
• World port rankings
• Major railway lines to the city
• Access to markets
• Time to export
• Time to import
• Internet access at home
• Telephone lines
• Mobile phone subscribers
• Logistics performance index
• Network readiness index
 

FDI Background
FDI Cities and Regions of the Future shortlists were created from an independent collection of data by FDI Benchmark across 223 European cities and 142 European regions. This information was set under six categories: economic potential, human resources, cost effectiveness, quality of life, infrastructure and business friendliness. A seventh category, FDI promotion strategy was also was added to the scoring. In this category, 99 European cities and regions submitted details about their promotion strategy and this was judged and scored by the independent judging panel.
 

For full details of the FDI magazine city awards click the following link: http://www.fdimagazine.com/cp/26/European-Cities-and-Regions-of-the-Future-2010-11.pdf