Niagara offers one of the most cost-competitive business environments in North America. Recent studies undertaken by the KPMG have highlighted the relative costs of doing business in Niagara compared with selected US and Canadian cities. The benchmark indicators from the original international study of 42 cities in seven countries were used to assess Niagara's attractiveness for business start up and operations over a ten year period. Eight industry sectors were compared against a number of location-sensitive cost factors including land costs, construction, labour costs, transportation, basic utilities and taxes.
The study highlights Niagara's many cost advantages in the analysis. Examples include:
Relatively low land costs compared with other regions
Significantly lower wage and benefit costs than US locations
Electricity costs below the average of all regions in the study
Comparative advantage in transportation and distribution costs
'Overall costs in Niagara are very competitive when compared to other cities in the central North American industrial region.' Source: A Comparison of Business Costs in Niagara, Ontario, Canada and the Unites States. KPMG, 1998. Business costs were also lower than each of the European countries examined in the original KPMG study, The Competitive Alternative.
