"Budapest has been selected as one of the top 25 European Cities of the Future by the Financial Times fDi Magazine in its "European Cities and Regions of the Future 2010/11" survey. The Hungarian capital city stepped forward 22 places compared to the 2008 poll, and has come in third in the Eastern European ranking of the most attractive investment destinations, finishing before Prague and Bratislava.London has once again been crowned by the survey, with Paris and Moscow following in second and third places, respectively.
"In the 2010/11 benchmark, London performed well across the spectrum, achieving the top position in the categories of economic potential, human resources and infrastructure, as well as claiming second position for FDI Strategy. London’s domination in the competition is unsurprising given the city has attracted more than one-third more FDI projects over the past five years than any other European city," according to fDi Markets.
Categories:
* overall ranking (Top25 European Cities) (Budapest is 25th);
* Major cities have a population of more than 1 million;
* Large cities have a population of between 500,000 and 1 million;
* Small cities have a population of between 250,000 and 500,000;
* Micro cities have a population of less than 250,000.
Budapest put in an appearance in the top 25 (25th), just like Bucharest (18th) and Warsaw (22nd). Budapest advanced 22 places compared to its position in the previous (2008/09) survey.
Budapest is not the only Hungarian city that achieved good results. In the top 5 FDI Strategy in Eastern Europe, Miskolc and Debrecen finished 4th and 5th, respectively.
Polish regions accounted for half of the top 10 Eastern European Regions of the Future; however, the Bucharest and Prague regions claimed the top two positions. The Northern Great Plain of Hungary was awarded the Best European Region in Eastern Europe for FDI Strategy, followed by Lesser Poland.
Methodology
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 was added to the scoring - FDI promotion strategy. 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.
Cities and regions scored up to a maximum of 10 points under each individual criteria, which were weighted by importance to give the overall scores. Where data was available only at a national rather than city or regional level, a lower weighting was generally applied."
Source: Portfolio Online Financial Journal
22.02.2010