US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday said he met with officials from Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), as it is considering building a plant in Wisconsin that could employ up to 10,000 people.
Ryan told reporters that his congressional district in the state’s southeast “still could be” in the running for the plant even though the city manager of his hometown, Janesville, said the factory would not be going there.
Ryan said he met with Hon Hai officials at the request of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and he is working closely with the state’s congressional delegation to find a “good fit” for a factory.
Other southeastern Wisconsin cities in Ryan’s district that are close to Chicago, including Racine and Kenosha, are considered possible contenders for a large factory.
Hon Hai plans to by early next month announce its plans for locating a display panel factory in the US that could cost up to US$7 billion.
Hon Hai assembles smartphones and other devices for Apple Inc, Sony Corp, BlackBerry Ltd and other brands — mostly in China, where its plants employ about 1 million people.
Company chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) has mentioned Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana and Texas as manufacturing states with which the company hopes to work.
“There is great potential there for a lot of great jobs to come to Wisconsin,” Ryan said. “We’re having those kinds of conversations with Foxconn to do that.”
Hopes that Wisconsin might win the plant were buoyed last month when US President Donald Trump said his administration was negotiating a US expansion with “a major, major, incredible manufacturer of phones and computers and televisions.”
Trump, who made the comments while in Wisconsin, said that Walker could be getting a “very happy surprise very soon.”
Earlier this week, state assembly Republican leaders said that Hon Hai is considering a plant in southeastern Wisconsin that could employ 10,000 people.
Walker and state officials have refused to discuss any potential deal while talks are ongoing.
Ryan declined to discuss details about where Hon Hai might locate after being asked about comments made by the city manager of Janesville that indicated it was out of the running.
The Janesville Gazette reported that City Manager Mark Freitag said Hon Hai had ruled out Janesville because there were not enough available workers in the area. A 10,000-job employer would account for about 15 percent of Janesville’s total workforce.
“This was a big ask for sure,” Freitag told the newspaper.
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