Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea's biggest automaker, said it picked Alabama over Kentucky as the site for its first, US$1 billion US plant, as it plans to increase its market share with locally produced vehicles.
The maker of Santa Fe and Sonata cars chose the Montgomery, Alabama site because of the utilities available, competitive labor rates and harbor facilities, as well as the state government's efforts to attract the automaker, said company President Kim Dong Jin. Construction will start this month and the plant will open in 2005, producing about 300,000 vehicles a year.
When completed, the factory will employ 2,000 workers, and generate 5,000 jobs in related industries, Kim said.
Hyundai Motor, which had also been evaluating a site in Glendale, Kentucky, wants a US plant to help increase its share of the world's biggest auto market. It expects US sales to rise at least 7 percent to 370,000 this year after a 42 percent rise in 2001, a bigger gain than any of its rivals. Hyundai ranks eighth in US sales, after overtaking Mitsubishi Motors Corp and Mazda Motor Corp last year.
"We have once again shown the world that Alabama is simply a great place to do business," Alabama Governor Don Siegelman said. "Hyundai and Alabama have forged a business partnership that will benefit Alabama families for generations to come."
Hyundai Motor shares rose as much as 4.4 percent to 42,700 won in Seoul.
Alabama's legislature last month approved spending as much as US$118.5 million for autoworker training to help persuade Hyundai to locate its plant in the state. Kentucky had offered Hyundai US$123 million in incentives, as well as about US$30 million to improve highway access near the Hardin County site, according to local newspaper reports.
Hyundai joins a growing list of automakers and auto-parts manufacturers that have moved into Alabama in the past decade.
DaimlerChrysler AG's Mercedes-Benz unit, which makes luxury M-class sport-utility vehicles in Tuscaloosa, is expanding the plant it opened in 1997, raising total investment in the state to US$1 billion and eventually employing 4,000 workers.
Honda Motor Co last year opened a light truck plant in Lincoln that will employ 2,800 people when a second phase is completed later this year. The Tokyo-based automaker has valued its investment in the plant at US$580 million.
Toyota Motor Corp is building a US$220 million engine plant in Huntsville, Alabama that is expected to create 350 jobs.
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