About 35 years ago, Harold Resweber, at the time the mayor of St. Martinville, went to Fruit of the Loom in Kentucky in search of jobs for his community. He found thousands of them as the textile giant built one of its largest plants just outside of town.
Today, with the company's abandoned plant a reminder of the lost manufacturing jobs across Louisiana and the rest of the country, Mayor Eric Martin is on the same quest, but to a far different location: China.
"Like Toyota and Nissan, there are Chinese companies that want a presence in the United States," Martin said. "Capitalism is exploding in China."
After several trips with other officials to China, Martin hopes to nab a Chinese auto parts manufacturer within the coming months. He also hopes the company, which he would not identify, will be just the first of other China-based companies to take up shop in the former Martin Mills plant.
If all goes well, Martin expects as many as 500 jobs to be created, with thousands more possible in the future.
Martin, like many other St. Martinville residents, blames the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for sweeping away 2,200 jobs at Martin Mills two years ago. But the mayor said he and other officials decided to look at NAFTA in a different way while seeking out recovery.
"Let's turn this NAFTA thing around and see if there are foreign countries who want a presence in the United States,'' he said.
Robert Kapp, president of the Washington-based US-China Business Council, did not know of any proposals for Chinese firms to set up operations elsewhere in the US, but said it was only a matter of time before Chinese investors would be spreading out across the country.
"You'd have to have a paper bag on your head not to realize that China is branching out and will have capital to invest, not only in this country but all around the world," Kapp said.
Fruit of the Loom's closure of Martin Mills, which employed 3,500 at its height in 1997, was one in a series of employment blows the company dealt to the state as it sought to lower labor costs by moving manufacturing jobs overseas. More than 6,000 workers were cut during the 1990s as the company also shut plants in Port Barre and Abbeville and eliminated jobs at its only remaining Louisiana facility at Jeanerette.
Martin said the Chinese, who have grabbed US manufacturing jobs with cheaper labor costs for years, are interested in Louisiana as a cost-effective base for assembling and marketing their products directly in the US, and for shipping them to Central and South America. Louisiana has several major ports through which goods could be shipped to the south.
Martin and other officials plan to visit China for a third time later this year to negotiate. In the meantime, US Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, has pledged support for expanding the foreign trade zone at the Port of Baton Rouge into St. Martin Parish.
In a foreign trade zone, companies can bring in goods free of US tariffs and assemble them into a finished product, which Martin said is what the auto parts company wants to do at Martin Mills.
The Martin Mills plant is now owned by a St. Louis company and, under the present scenario, would be purchased by Chinese investors. The facility is large enough that up to a dozen other manufacturers could also be housed there.
Martin says the potential of Chinese investment in the US could be as potent as investments from Japan during the 1970s and 1980s.
"The Chinese are visionary and see these emerging markets growing very rapidly. In a few years, you're going to see these kinds of investments all over the country," he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last