A recent edition of Forbes Inc. magazine rated Washington state third in its annual “Best States for Business” competition, pushing it up two notches from the previous year’s contest.

Virginia was first and Georgia was second, moving from 15th place in 2007.

The magazine looked at six areas of importance: business costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, current economic climate, growth prospects and quality of life.

It said it rated business costs as the most important factor.

I have to tell you right off that I don’t put too much stock into these ratings because every publication or organization that does one uses a different yardstick and it can get awfully confusing.

Gov. Chris Gregoire was quick to laud the report, saying that it “confirms that Washington is where you want to do business.

“By highlighting our future capacity, Forbes has told the world Washington is open for business. Not just now, but far into the future.”

Gregoire is up for re-election, so I would expect her to use the report to promote herself and her administration. And why not? If Washington had dropped a couple points, we’d be hearing about that in campaign ads against her.

The National Federation of Independent Business, based in Lacey, criticized the report, noting that Washington had a mediocre ranking in business costs, the most important factor, yet still ranked high overall.

In a piece written for opinion pages, Troy Nichols of the organization and Patrick Connor of the Washington State Farm Bureau noted that Washington is one of only five states that doesn’t allow small businesses to purchase workers’ compensation insurance from a private company, creating what they called “one of the costliest and most complex systems in the country.”

Carl Gipson, the director of small business for the Washington Policy Center, suggested we “should temper the celebratory champagne popping.”

He suggested that before we run around chanting “We’re No. 3. We’re No. 3” we should look at some of the other rankings the state has achieved. He noted Washington was tied for 18th by CNBC, 38th in economic freedom in North America by the Frasier Institute, 11th in business tax climate by the Tax Foundation and 15th in highest cost of doing business by the Milken Institute.

I prefer to look at the Forbes report as one of many ways of looking at the state’s business climate. It’s fun to check the numbers and rate ourselves with other states, but it’s just an exercise.

If I were in the trucking business, I wouldn’t think the business climate would be all that great since Washington has the highest gas tax in the nation. If I were Boeing, I think I would appreciate the $15.5 million the state spent on building a new barge pier at the bottom of my railroad spur in Everett to make it easier for me to get jet parts from Asia.

Some things are good, some are bad. But at least somebody seems to think we look pretty good overall.

If you’d like to form your own opinion, you can check out the report at www.forbes.com.

Being a cheapskate, that’s what I did instead of buying a copy. And I noticed something that nobody else seemed to be talking about.

Both Olympia and Spokane were in the top 10 in the nation for the best metropolitan areas for business and careers.

The magazine looked at colleges, cost of doing business, cost of living, crime rate, culture, education, income, job growth and other issues to pick the best cities. Washington state was the only one in the nation to get two communities in the top 10.

That’s an achievement, especially when you consider that half of the 10 best were from the South: Raleigh, N.C.; Lexington, Ky.; Atlanta, Ga.; Richmond, Va; and Knoxville, Tenn.

A lot of companies, including Boeing, have been considering the South for its new plants, mainly because the labor costs are so much cheaper there. In tons of publications, the South seems to be the place to start a business, start a career or retire.

So it’s nice to see that Olympia and Spokane seem to measure up with their rivals down south.

Again, we could probably poke some holes into the nominations of those Washington cities if we worked hard enough. But that’s not the point.

It’s just nice to know that by somebody’s measure, we appear to be doing some things right in these parts.

Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459, benbow@heraldnet.com.