"London has remained on top of European Cities Monitor (ECM), the annual location survey of Europe's leading companies carried out by global real estate consultant Cushman and Wakefield's. Budapest was ranked behind both Prague and Warsaw in the Central and Eastern European region.The UK capital is the top-rated city for half of the 12 factors which are ranked to give the overall league table. This year, London has improved its scores in areas including climate created by government (up three places to No 2). However, it fell nine places to 25th for cost of staff.
European Cities Monitor (ECM) is based on interviews with senior managers and board directors in charge of location of 500 top European companies. It looks at factors regarded as important by companies when deciding where to locate, and then compares the performance of 33 of Europe's leading business cities on each factor.
Cushman's factors are Easy access to markets, Qualified staff, External transport links, Telecommunications, Cost of staff, Climate governments create, Value for money of office space, Availability of office space, Languages spoken, Internal transport, Quality of life and Freedom from pollution.
Availability of qualified staff, considered an ‘absolutely essential' factor by 62% of respondents, has overtaken access to markets as being the most important factor to consider when locating a business. In third place is quality of telecommunications, which this year overtakes external transport links.
Budapest was a leading business city in CEE for a long time in the 90s, but in recent years it was overtaken by Prague and Warsaw, said Péter Számely, head of Eurohypo's Hungarian representative office in Budapest. Budapest now ranks 23rd on Cushman's ECM, down from 22nd last year, while Prague is 14th (vs. 13th in 2006) and Warsaw is 19th (vs. 18th in 2006).
Charles Taylor, head of Cushman & Wakefield's Hungarian branch, said it was particularly interesting that all three cities rank worse now than in 2006. He explained this phenomenon by the fact that the EU accession of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic happened a long time ago (2004) and so they may not be as “hip" destinations as before. He noted that cost of staff is undoubtedly making Budapest less and less attractive.
With regards to the business environment Budapest fell to the 6th place from 2nd last year, and is now behind Prague and Warsaw, while Bucharest, Vienna and Moscow ranked lower than the Hungarian capital."
Source:
Portfolio Online Financial Journal
18.10.2007