Last year, the state ranked 48th in gross domestic product growth with a year-over-year increase of 0.02 percent, according to Old Dominion University professors who presented the first “State of the Commonwealth” report Thursday morning at the Virginia Economic Summit in Williamsburg. Only Alaska and Mississippi had slower growth rates.

Since 2010, Virginia’s real gross domestic product has failed to grow more than 1 percent each year.

“For so long, we’ve been the first or the best at everything: The home of the first permanent English colony in the Americas, the first representative assembly in the Western Hemisphere, the home of our first president … a longstanding reputation as the best-managed state in the country and, until recently, the best state for business,” said Chris Lloyd, senior vice president and director of infrastructure and economic development for McGuireWoods Consulting LLC, one of the sponsors of the report. “Because we’re so used to being first or the best, when that position started to be challenged, it would be easy for many of us to be paralyzed by inaction and to panic.”

Instead, business leaders wanted to “take a critical look at what we’re doing right and also what we’re doing wrong,” so the Virginia Chamber Foundation asked ODU to dissect the state’s economy and offer suggestions.

James Koch, professor of economics and former president of ODU, and Larry “Chip” Filer, an ODU associate professor of economics, presented the report. Koch has spearheaded the production of the Hampton Roads “State of the Region” report for 15 years, but this is the first time he has authored a statewide analysis.

A crowd estimated by organizers at 700 listened to the report Thursday at the Williamsburg Lodge.

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