St. John's Metropolitan Area Remains in the Top
St. John's is one of the most cost-effective cities in the world in which to do business. In KPMG's 1998 study of 42 cities in seven countries, St. John's emerged as number one. For 1999, KPMG broadened its survey to include 64 cities in eight countries. This time, St. John's was second, a mere half-point behind Sherbrooke, Quebec.

These standings pertain to overall performance across seven manufacturing industries and two software industries. The KPMG study accounted for the total costs of establishing a business including location-sensitive costs such as labour, electricity, taxes, and transportation. The study developed a snapshot of business costs, weighted to reflect the significance of each cost item, for a new facility from startup through its first ten years of operation. Some cities in the study proved to have costs over 40% higher than St. John's.

The St. John's area number two ranking places it ahead of the three Atlantic Canadian centres of Charlottetown, Halifax and Moncton and ahead of major eastern cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Boston!

St. John's Area Number one in Manufacturing
For the second year running, the capital city rates as the lowest cost location for four of the seven manunfacturing industries!

• Electronics
• Telecommunications Equipment
• Medical Devices
• Pharmaceuticals

St. John's Area Ranks Highly in Software/Services
The city ranks number three overall in the Advanced Software sector and is the lowest cost location outside of Quebec! In the Packaged Software business, St. John's placed fourth behind only San Juan, Quebec City and Sherbrooke. KPMG concludes that the results are broadly representative of the knowledge-intensive services sector as a whole.

Taxation - on the Cutting EDGE
Our Economic Diversification and Growth Enterprises (EDGE) initiative is a business incentive program with features that include 10-year tax holidays from provincial corporate income tax and the health and post-secondary education (payroll) tax. The tax holiday is also extended to municipal property and business taxes by 45 municipalities that have joined with the Province in offering EDGE incentives.

Today there are 60 companies in Newfoundland and Labrador in good standing which are participating in the EDGE program and more are under review.

EDGE companies have invested $70 million in the provincial economy to date and are employing in excess of 800 people. The potential exists for these companies to generate $700 million in new investment and employ well over 2,500. Over half of the companies are in the manufacturing sector. EDGE has caught on here at home, with over 60 per cent of current EDGE participants being established Newfoundland and Labrador businesses.