Press release from The Office of Governor Rick Perry

AUSTIN – MSNBC.com and Moody’s Economy have announced that the Austin-Round Rock, Brownsville-Harlingen, Dallas-Plano-Irving, El Paso, Lubbock, McAllen-Edinburg-Pharr and San Antonio areas are among the first in the nation to move from recession into recovery, indicating that their economies have grown over the past six months.

The announcement is based on MSNBC and Moody’s Adversity Index, which uses data on employment, industrial production, housing starts and home prices to place each state or metro area in one of four categories: expanding, at risk of recession, in recession or recovering. This is the first month this year that any U.S. metro area has moved from in recession into recovery.

Additionally, CNN Money has ranked Texas as one of the Top Five Best States to Launch a Business thanks to our reasonable tax structure and incentive funds such as the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. The article also credited the franchise tax exemption, passed at Gov. Perry’s direction during the 81st Legislative Session, with fostering growth in small businesses in the state. Texas is the only large state to be ranked.

To view the MSNBC and Moody’s ranking, please visit
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33312701/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/

To view CNN Money’s ranking, please visit
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/smallbusiness/0910/gallery.best_places_tax_havens.smb/2.html

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