When announced in July of last year, Yuhuang Chemical’s planned $1.85 billion methanol manufacturing facility on the Mississippi River in St. James Parish marked the first major Chinese foreign direct investment project in Louisiana. But outgoing Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret says it hopefully won’t be the last.
“We’re actively competing for a bunch of projects in China. A small team of us went over there a few months ago, to Beijing, Shanghai and Ningbo, and we have a number of big, China-based, global companies that are considering projects in Louisiana right now,” Moret tells 10/12 Industry Report in an exclusive interview from the spring issue. Yuhuang Chemical is the biggest one announced to date, but there are several others that we’re competing for.”
10/12 Industry Report spoke with Moret as the first quarter was winding down to get an overview of the state’s economy and the latest developments in the industrial boom. Moret says Chinese firms are increasingly looking outside the country for project investments as the manufacturing cost advantages that were once seen in China have eroded.
“They have had huge increases in labor and logistics costs; real estate costs are high; and electricity costs are going up rapidly. There are a bunch of issues that have caused the U.S. and China manufacturing sectors to start to come more into parity, particularly in downstream, natural gas-related projects,” he explains. “With the U.S. natural gas price being so low, it’s really made the U.S. much more competitive for those projects, and of course we’re trying to get more than our fair share of those. Once we realized that there was going to be meaningful interest coming out of China, we’ve really taken that country more seriously, and that’s why we’ve been spending time in Asia.”
Read the full Q&A with Moret from the spring issue of 10/12 Industry Report. Send your comments to editor@1012businessreport.com.
In mid-March, Moret was named the next president and CEO of the LSU Foundation. He’ll begin his new job in May. Meanwhile, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration continues to search for his replacement.
