Ten of Los Angeles County’s 88 cities were named Tuesday as finalists for the most business-friendly city award handed out each year by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

In the major cities category with population over 50,000, Cerritos, Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena and Santa Clarita were named as finalists. In the smaller cities category, Culver City, La Mirada, Monrovia, Santa Fe Springs and Vernon were finalists.

This marks the third year of the Economic Development Corp.’s business-friendly city competition, which the non-profit’s chief executive Bill Allen launched in an effort to get cities to pay more attention to meeting the needs of businesses. In previous years, only five finalist cities have been named; this year, as cities have become more focused on keeping their businesses satisfied, the Economic Development Corp. expanded the finalist list to 10

Cities are evaluated on how they demonstrate a commitment to economic development; how they provide programs and services to help local businesses; and on how competitive their business taxes and fees are.

The city of El Segundo won the first award in 2006; Lancaster won last year. The county’s largest city, Los Angeles, has never been named as a finalist.