Arkansas at a glance.

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Business Highlights

THE ARKANSAS ECONOMIC Development Commission names these industries principal in Arkansas: manufacturing, agriculture, forestry, business services and tourism. Principal manufactured goods are chemicals, food products, lumber, paper, electronic equipment, rubber and plastic products, furniture, home appliances, apparel, machinery, transportation equipment and steel.

Five homegrown Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in Arkansas: Alltel Corp., Dillard's Inc., Murphy Oil Corp., Tyson Foods Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which is the largest retail company in the world. The state also is home to more than 20 publicly traded companies. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, Arkansas had about 66,000 private employer firms in 2006, up 5.3 percent from 2005.

In addition, Wal-Mart, named by Fortune as the world's largest corporation from 2002-06, has also ranked as one of the nation's most admired companies.

In 2005, the Little Rock-North Little Rock metro ranked high on Entrepreneur magazine's lists of entrepreneurial hot cities, based on business formation and business growth.

Taking central Arkansas by storm, recent advances in drilling technology have made the process of extracting natural gas from shale much more cost effective. The Fayetteville Shale Play, an unconventional underground natural gas formation on the Arkansas side of the Arkoma Basin, stretches across many of The Natural State's central counties.

A May 2006 economic impact study conducted by the University of Arkansas Center for Business & Economic Research and funded by Southwestern Energy Co. said that the development of the Fayetteville Shale Play could have an estimated $5.5 billion total economic impact on the state through 2008. The study also estimated that the play would create more than 9,000 full-time equivalent jobs and generate $357.7 million in state and local tax revenues. The shale play includes the following counties: Cleburne, Conway, Faulkner, Franklin, Independence, Jackson, Johnson, Lonoke, Lee, Monroe, St. Francis, Phillips, Pope, Prairie, Van Buren, White and Woodruff.

Economic Outlook

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Arkansas had a 5.3 percent unemployment rate for 2006. From 1999-2005, the labor force grew 8.6 percent, exceeding the national average of 7.1 percent. And from 2005-06, the per capita income of the state increased by 5.5 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In the second quarter of 2007, Arkansas had the third-lowest cost-of-living index in the nation at 89.7, compared with highest-ranking Hawaii's 161.8, according to the Missouri Economic & Research Information Center.

Businesses receive low tax obligations through incentives, exemptions, credits and refunds.

Retail Sales

Total retail sales in Arkansas reached $38.8 billion in 2006, according to the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.

Agriculture

Arkansas is the No. 1 rice producer in the nation, with 108.8 million hundredweight in 2005, and the No. 2 poultry producer in the United States, with 1.21 billion birds in 2005. The state is the nation's No. 5 cotton supplier and is No. 9 in the nation for soybeans.

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Business Climate

According to the Milken Institute's 2007 Cost-of-Doing-Business Index, Arkansas has the 41st lowest cost of doing business, which is better than most of the South.

About 103 million people live within a 550-mile (880-kilometer) radius of Arkansas. Nearby major market centers are Memphis, Tenn.; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Houston; Kansas City, Mo.-Kansas.; Oklahoma City; New Orleans; and St. Louis.

Tourism

The Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism reported that tourists spent more than $5.04 billion in Arkansas in 2006. An estimated 23.07 million tourists visited Arkansas attractions in 2006, an increase of 5.7 percent from 2005.

Climate

Central Arkansas has a temperate climate with four seasons, long summers and short winters. In Little Rock, the average temperature in August 2007 was 87, and the average temperature in January 2007 was 41. Arkansas saw 48 inches of rain in 2006.

ARKANSAS NATURAL RESOURCES

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Coal

Bituminous and semi-anthracite coal reserves underlie about 1,400 square miles of western Arkansas, less than 2.7 percent of the state's total area. Arkansas produced about 3,000 short tons in 2005.

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Timber

Forests cover 17.69 million acres--more than half the state. Pine woods make up 42 percent, and the rest is oak and other mixed hardwoods. Timber growing, harvesting, management, transporting and processing are major Arkansas industries.

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Natural Gas

Arkansas produced more than 190 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2005, with about 1.9 trillion cubic feet in reserve. Development of the Fayetteville Shale Play has increased production.

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Water

Arkansas has almost 700,000 acres of surface water. More than 800 billion liters of high-quality groundwater are contained in aquifers capable of yielding more than 2,000 liters per minute. The state also has more than 1,000 miles of navigable waterways, with ports on the Mississippi, Arkansas and Ouachita rivers.

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Crude Oil

Crude oil is produced in the southwest region of the state, with an annual production of about 6.3 million barrels and about 40 million barrels in reserve as of 2005.

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Minerals

Arkansas is the nation's top producer of quartz crystal, its only producer of novaculite and the No. 1 producer of bromine in the entire world. Other minerals found here include cement rock, clay, gypsum, limestone, serpentine rock, shale, silica sand, syenite, tripoli, dimension stone, crushed stone, sand, gravel and slate. The following are distances from Little Rock to major cities in the region Atlanta 523 miles Dallas 307 miles Houston 443 miles Jackson, Miss 256 miles Kansas City, Mo.-Kansas 405 miles Louisville, Ky 522 miles Memphis 139 miles New Orleans 437 miles Nashville 360 miles Oklahoma City 348 miles St Louis 360 miles Tulsa 288 miles COUNTY POPULATION County 1990 2000 2006 (estimate) Conway 19,151 20,336 20,694 Faulkner 60,006 86,014 100,695 Garland 73,397 88,068 95,164 Grant 13,948 16,464 17,493 Hot Spring 26,115 30,353 31,730 Jefferson 85,487 84,278 80,655 Lonoke 39,268 52,828 62,902 Perry 7,969 10,209 10,411 Pulaski 349,660 361,474 367,319 Saline 64,183 83,529 94,024 White 54,676 67,165 72,560 Source U.S. Census Bureau, Metro Little Rock Alliance CITY POPULATION City (County) 1990 2000 2005 (estimate) Beebe (White) 4,455 4,930 5,623 Benton (Saline) 18,177 21,906 25,673 Bryant (Saline) 5,269 9,764 13,185 Cabot (Lonoke) 8,319 15,261 21,039 Carlisle (Lonoke) 2,253 2,304 2,419 Conway (Faulkner) 26,481 43,167 51,999 England (Lonoke) 3,351 2,972 3,028 Greenbrier (Faulkner) 2,130 3,042 3,615 Hot Springs (Garland) 32,462 35,750 37,847 Jacksonville (Pulaski) 29,961 29,916 30,367 Little Rock (Pulaski) 180,925 183,133 184,564 Lonoke (Lonoke) 4,022 4,287 4,552 Malvern (Hot Spring) 9,256 9,021 9,068 Maumelle (Pulaski) 6,912 10,557 14,318 Mayflower (Faulkner) 1,415 1,631 1,900 Morrilton (Conway) 6,551 6,550 6,607 North Little Rock (Pulaski) 63,567 60,433 58,803 Perryville (Perry) 1,141 1,458 1,471 Pine Bluff (Jefferson) 57,140 55,085 52,693 Searcy (White) 15,180 18,928 20,663 Sheridan (Grant) 3,098 3,872 4,349 Sherwood (Pulaski) 19,452 21,511 23,149 Vilonia (Faulkner) 1,133 2,106 2,719 Ward (Lonoke) 1,269 2,580 3,271 Wrightsville (Pulaski) 1,093 1,368 1,521 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Metro Little Rock Alliance