This has been the week of business-related rankings. On Thursday, Forbes released its latest "Best States for Business" rankings. Washington moved up two spots to occupy the silver medal position, behind only Virginia.

The Forbes ranking has created a stir in our state for a number of years. One thing for certain is that Washington has consistently moved up the ranking rung, ending up now as the second best place for business. That's the good news. The other side of the coin, and Forbes points this out, is that many other of the states that previously ranked high, took a nose-dive largely because of the turmoil in the housing and financial markets. No state was untouched by the Great Recession, but some were hit disproportionately hard (here's looking at you Nevada, Florida and Arizona). 

It is also important to note that ! many of theses states, which were hit hard by housing downturns, and therefore depleted state coffers, saw setbacks in their rankings because the state government turned around by raising taxes on businesses and citizens, thereby reducing their overall score.

Washington fared a lot better than other states during this last downturn, but how much of it had to do with government intervention versus the adaptability of our producers? States like NV, FL, and AZ saw massive hits to the housing industry, in large part because the housing bubble burst. Michigan saw the implosion of the Big Three Detroit auto-makers. California's tax and regulatory climate broke its economic back. People are literally fleeing New Jersey for greener pastures (read the third-to-last paragraph in the Forbes story).

By contrast, Washington is enjoying higher-than-ever exports per capita. We recently topped $10K per person exports per capita -- the first time that has ever happened in ! the nation. The cheap dollar certainly helped. We have very in! expensive energy rates -- for the time being -- thanks largely to hydropower. Our citizenry and workforce are highly educated. And many of our high-growth industries through the last several years have been in white-collar, high-wage, innovation fields such as software engineering.

As Dr. Arun Raha, the state's chief economist, said at AWB's Policy Summit earlier this week, we are seeing an unprecedented global recovery, even though our own economy remains fragile, and export industries will help Washington recover much faster than otherwise would have happened. 

So, there is a lot to be hopeful about, but for as many industries that may see growth in the near term, there are an equal number that may very well fall back into recessionary mode. All is not well quite yet and it is important that policymakers focus on areas where smart and responsible decisions will have ! a beneficial impact on the economy and our businesses.

For instance, even though we rank 2nd best in the nation in the overall ranking, we ranked a below-average 27th in the "Business Costs Index." Let's lower the cost of doing business in our state and make Washington #1.