Jobs: Foreign investment helps Miss.
But the fact that foreign investment in Mississippi has increased over the last several years is undeniable.
A new book by New York Times senior business writer Michelle Maynard called The Selling of the American Economy: How Foreign Companies Are Remaking the American Dream focuses on Mississippi’s emerging role in that process.
Maynard’s thesis in the book is that growing foreign investment is an economic development strategy in which rural states with lots of land, a stable labor force and the willingness to provide appropriate incentives can be highly successful. There are now just over five million American jobs in foreign-owned companies in the U.S.
In an interview earlier this week broadcast on National Public Radio, Maynard recounted the fact that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is one of the focal points of her book because of his success in attracting foreign investment.
“I . . . talk about Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi, who really has left no stone unturned going out to look for foreign investment,” Maynard said. “I tell a story about Hurricane Katrina, which people know hit Mississippi very hard. But at the end of that week, he was already making calls to places in Japan, China and Korea and saying, we will be open again for business. That was how determined he was to land foreign investment.”
Read more at The Clarion Ledger
10/29/9
