LANSING – In recent months, Toyota, Nissan and Hyundai Motor announced plans to build or expand R&D facilities in Michigan. Michigan automakers are investing new capital in existing plants in the state. In the formerly quiet village of Dundee, the Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance is building not one but two engine plants. Kalamazoo has come back from the loss of 800 biotechnology jobs to corporate downsizing with the launch of 13 life science start-up companies, many headed by formerly unemployed scientists. In all of these developments and hundreds more like them, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation has played a vital role through its effective business services and targeted assistance.
The MEDC is a public corporation, formed in 1999 as a partnership between the Michigan Strategic Fund and local economic development agencies?122 at last count. Our unique standing between the public and private sectors gives us the best of both worlds: access to state resources and close cooperation with other government agencies, combined with the ability to make quick economic development decisions and tackle major development projects.
Last year, Governor Granholm announced MEDC-assisted projects that helped create and/or retain a total of more than 54,000 jobs. Our successful efforts have helped make Michigan number one in North American for auto-related R&D investment. Michigan?s biotechnology sector is the nation?s fastest-growing biotechnology state, with more than 100 new life science companies created since 2000, largely as a result of the Life Sciences Corridor and Technology Tri-Corridor initiatives. Over the past eight years Michigan is #1 in the nation for new major corporate expansions and facilities, as tracked by Site Selection magazine. The same publication ranked the MEDC one of the Top 10 Economic Development agencies for five years running.
Building on these and other achievements, the MEDC continues to help create jobs for Michigan workers through business retention and attraction, the growth of emerging technologies, assuring the continuing presence of a highly skilled workforce and aggressively marketing Michigan at home and abroad.
Customized assistance is delivered to individual businesses throughout the state by a team of 25 MEDC account managers. These professionals made more than 6,000 business retention visits in 2004, the majority to companies with less than 50 employees.
We compete aggressively for new corporate investments with targeted assistance that includes Single Business Tax credits and tax-free Renaissance Zones. Through the Technology Tri-Corridor program, the MEDC is fostering the growth of high-tech, high-growth industries that include life sciences, advanced automotive manufacturing and homeland security and defense. As proposed by Governor Granholm, the new, $2 billion Jobs for Michigan Fund program would also be administered by the MEDC if it is approved by the state Legislature and Michigan voters. Our network of SmartZones is successfully encouraging collaboration between the private sector, public sector, and universities to build and grow high tech businesses and form clusters of innovation and technology in 11 Michigan communities.
In the global, 21st century economy, it is essential that Michigan?s attractiveness as a business location to be promoted in other countries. The MEDC has been active in seeking international investments and job creation here in Michigan, most notably through Governor Granholm?s investment mission to Germany last fall and upcoming mission to Japan in July.
The MEDC?s new stand-alone International Development office also operates trade offices in Mexico City and Shanghai, helping Michigan exporters access these growing markets.
Much of the MEDC?s success stems from its proactive, entrepreneurial spirit and close collaboration with partners throughout the state. Together, we are helping Michigan companies become better competitors in the global economy. We are seeding growth ventures and nurturing entrepreneurship in competitive-edge technologies. The world is not standing still, Michigan is not standing still, and neither is the state?s premier economic development organization.
Don Jakeway is president and CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corp.
