Kia: car plant construction still on track

Signs on the road to completing the Kia car plant. (Dave Bender)

Vehicles are set to roll off the Kia Motor assembly plant near West Point by November of 2009 according to Randy Jackson, Kia human resources director.

Jackson said an estimated 650 employees will be hired by the end of 2008, and that by the end of 2009, about half of the 2,500 team members expected at full capacity will have been hired.

Jackson said that output would depend on how quickly and how well the workforce training comes along. The company says it expects to reach the 2,500 employee benchmark in late 2010.

One hundred and sixteen professionals have been hired so far to work at the $1 billion facility, and have set up temporary offices in nearby LaGrange and at the plant site.

Companies supplying the plant have hired on over 5,000 employees, according to a Kia statement.

The plant will produce some 300,000 vehicles annually including the Sorrento SUV, and another, yet-to-be-named vehicle, when the facility reaches full capacity, Jackson said.

Kia officials in May quashed rumors of changes and uncertainty in their production plans, due to soaring gas prices. Senior Hyundai officials in Korea had been quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as saying that the plant would retool to produce a small car, instead of a planned SUV model.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the Kia plant, and its regional impact.

Kia supplier opening Columbus factory

A Korean automotive parts firm is set to open it's first U.S. plant in Columbus, by year's end.

Illustration of Dongnam Tech auto carpet products. (Courtesy)

DongNam Tech, will open a 100,000 sq.-ft., 26-acre factory in Jan., 2009 that will make carpet and floor mats for several car makers including General Motors, Hyundai, Kia, and Nissan.

The $29 million plant, to be built in the Muscogee Technology Park will create 350 jobs, according to a Governor's Office statement.

The plant is one of many suppliers that have opened facilities in western Georgia, to service the Kia Motors assembly line, presently under construction near West Point. The $1.2 billion plant is scheduled to open in early to mid 2009.

Construction cranes at Kia plant lifting girders into place, June, 2008. (Dave Bender)

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the Kia factory, and its local and statewide impact.

Major economic investment coming to southeast Georgia

Southeast Georgia is primed to benefit from a major economic investment.

Effingham County’s Industrial Development Authority voted unanimously to approve an offer from a European manufacturing company to base its U.S. headquarters in Springfield, north of Savannah. The deal to be announced Monday wraps-up months of negotiations in which several other states were considered.

John Henry is the Authority’s chief executive officer. He says the deal will be the biggest for the Effingham County area in 20 years:

"We’re looking at about a 215-percent rate of return on tax dollars invested…the public benefit from this will probably be in the hundreds of millions of dollars".

It will also mean hundreds of jobs.

The company makes electronic components. Its name will be revealed in the Monday announcement.