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Wealthy China sweet on Miami Valley

With properties at bargain prices, the nation takes opportunity to increase U.S. assets.

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By Steve Bennish, Staff Writer Updated 4:19 PM Saturday, July 2, 2011

China is on a buying binge.

The People’s Republic is loaded with cash — $3 trillion dollars in reserve — driven largely by massive trade deficits the U.S. has run with the world’s most populous country for more than a decade.

Following the Wall Street meltdown and financial crisis, properties in America, and especially the Midwest, are at bargain-basement prices. Chinese delegations representing their Communist state-owned companies are looking for places to invest in hard assets, and they’ve found the Miami Valley.

Debate centers on whether the investments are helping the economy recover or empowering a global economic rival that has effectively used state-sponsored companies to clobber American business. Political tensions between the nations are on display with increasing complaints in Congress about Chinese currency manipulation, import duty evasion and product dumping that’s killed jobs, as well as long-documented espionage.

Foreign companies operating in Ohio now employ 194,000. As yet, very few are Chinese national companies, state records show, but that could change.

Beijing West Industries is being offered $2.6 million in taxpayer-underwritten incentives for a possible company project to expand in Kettering using the pieces of Delphi’s businesses it bought in a bankruptcy deal in 2009.

Delphi, with origins in Dayton, lost 5,473 workers locally since 2002 because of international trade, including shifts in production to Mexico, India, and China, according to federal records. It’s the largest number of federally certified displaced workers – eligible for retraining funds – for any local company.

The Ohio Tax Credit Authority this year authorized a tax credit for the Chinese government company valued at $923,758 as part of the package aimed at persuading BWI to consolidate operations in Kettering.

BWI said it could bring about 100 new engineering and corporate jobs and $7.9 million in annual payroll to Kettering’s Miami Valley Research Park, retaining more than 200 existing jobs. BWI operates as a subsidiary of Shougang, also known as Capital Steel, a state-owned Chinese industry.

The $20 million project, which Kettering and Montgomery County officials have pursued for more than a year, would include construction of a 167,000-square-foot building at the park for the consolidation of BWI locations in Michigan and two local sites.

Kettering is making available $500,000, and $450,000 is being offered for roadwork development, while $350,000 being made available through an Montgomery County ED/GE (Economic Development/Government Equity) grant. Other incentives include $300,000 through an Ohio “rapid outreach grant,” $90,000 through an Ohio “work force guarantee,” and $25,000 from the Dayton Development Coalition.

Crain’s Detroit Business reported last year that BWI’s $100 million purchase “required approval by Delphi’s bankruptcy court, the U.S. government and the Chinese government ... on top of that, the deal was Beijing West’s first entry into the global automotive market, including the transfer of automotive intellectual property that was close to unprecedented for a Chinese buyer.”

Gregory Dronen, BWI’s global facilities director based in Kettering, said Wednesday that bringing the deal to conclusion is his top priority. Southern Michigan is also under consideration for the project, he added. No decision will be made until later this year, he said.

“I don’t want to jump in the middle of politics,” Dronen said. “We are a global international company and a good corporate citizen. I don’t want to get in the middle of how a state allocates funds. It’s important to consolidate our presence and consolidate business.”

BWI would be expected to invest $20.2 million in the Kettering project, including $13 million for a building, $1.4 million for land, $800,000 for machinery and equipment and more than $5 million in other investments, according to the Ohio Department of Development. The company’s main customers in North America are General Motors and Harley-Davidson.

Not everyone agrees with the terms of the deal, including David Ferriman, president of nonprofit political action group Economy In Crisis.org based in Dublin. The group advocates for balanced trade, including ending a trade deficit with China that in 2010 meant China sold $273 billion more in goods here than the U.S. sold to China.

“With taxpayer money, we should be focusing on American companies creating American jobs,” Ferriman said. He added, “if the Chinese have all that money, they don’t need a hand out to come here. American companies need that assistance.”

Montgomery County Commissioner Debbie Lieberman, who helped guide a tour for Chinese reps earlier this year, said local development officials want a relationship with China that could mean jobs here. But she also acknowledged the harm to the local economy from years of huge foreign trade imbalances.

“We are finally waking up and have seen what it’s done to our country,” she said. “We have to continue to urge our congressmen and senators that there needs to be a balance.”

Another local business event has a link to China. AES Corporation, an electric utility 15 percent owned by a newly established Chinese sovereign wealth fund stocked with hundreds of billions of dollars, wants to buy Dayton Power & Light. Nothing is stopping the fund from more energy investments.

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