COLUMBIA – Gov. Henry McMaster is traveling to Germany to strengthen the trade ties that have fueled this century’s economic boom in the once-struggling southern state.
The governor is one of the guests at the TDI conference, also known as the Day of German Industry. McMaster will give a keynote address on South Carolina‘s relations with German companies and participate in a roundtable discussion, according to South Carolina Department of Commerce Chief Harry Lightsey.
“South Carolina was a pioneer in reaching out to companies from all over the world and getting them to come here,” Lightsey said. “That’s really been the backbone of South Carolina’s growth story.”
The Palmetto State ranks second in the United States, behind Delaware, in a population-adjusted index that tracks foreign companies with various operations in the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
And German companies have the largest presence in South Carolina of any country in the world, with 262 sites employing about 44,000 workers, or about 2 percent of the state’s total workforce.
During five days in Germany starting June 23, McMaster also plans to visit the headquarters of two major automakers with big interests in South Carolina.
In Munich he will meet with managers from BMW, which built a plant in Greer in 1994 that continues to expand and which today has more than 11,000 workers. The luxury automaker is among the first of a wave of foreign automakers that have built factories in the Southeast and bolstered the state against the textile industry’s rapid move overseas and into Mexico.
Gov. Henry McMaster visited the BMW plant in Spartanburg County in October 2020. He is on an economic development mission in Germany, the automaker’s homeland, starting next week.
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Another stop will be in Wolfsburg, where McMaster will tour the Volkswagen AG headquarters. VW is the parent company of Scout Motors, which is building a plant near Columbia to make electric SUVs. The company hopes to open in 2027 and employ up to 4,000 workers.
“CEOs want to meet with CEOs. Governor McMaster is the CEO of our state,” the Commerce Department said in a statement.
McMaster also plans to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the country’s finance minister, Lightsey said.
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