For the second year in a row Prince George took 25th spot out of 121 Canadian cities ranked for their appeal as places to start and grow a business.
It's the ninth time the Canadian Federation of Independent Business issued its annual report, looking at cities with a population over 20,000.
Prince George's overall score of 63.4 points has steadily climbed, along with its ranking, over the last five years. In 2014, its score was 62.2, up from 58.7 and 33rd spot the year before.
"The resource price bust in Western Canada, for example, has had an obvious effect on business owners' optimism, but its negative influence on business demographics or government policy has been modest," said CFIB's release.
Several B.C. communities took top spots including Kelowna, which ranked third, one ahead of Penticton. Kelowna also claimed first place as a top-ranking large community.
It was the first time in five years that position didn't go to the grouping of municipalities surrounding Calgary.
Other cities ahead of Prince George were Chilliwack at ninth spot, Salmon Arm at 13, Vernon at 21 and Victoria at 24.
The 13-page report argues any city's successful development is tied to entrepreneurship at a local level and looked at three categories of "entrepreneurship indicators" to calculate a score: presence, covering the scale and growth of business ownership; prospective deals with optimism and growth plans; and policy that looks at local government action around business taxation and regulation.
"Although we produce city rankings, we are not trying to define a singular concept of entrepreneurship or success," the authors wrote.
The findings are relatively stable, they said, but the scores also show the "massive sectoral and regional economic restructuring seen in the past two years."
