South Carolina Statehouse Blog

With the current condition of the economy, many states, including South Carolina, are taking matters into their own hands. Just a couple weeks back, Representative Michael Pitts and Representative Jeff Duncan conducted a trade mission to Germany. The goal of this mission was to meet with several businesses to discuss their future operations in South Carolina. Representative Pitts was willing to talk with me about the trip and the following article is based off our discussion.

This trip was sponsored by South Carolina’s Department of Commerce and, as stated above, its goal was to try to get different foreign companies to either commit to come to South Carolina or commit to continue their current operations in South Carolina.

One company that Representatives Pitts and Duncan met with was Körber, a precision machine producer.

The scheduled 30-minute meeting with one of the owners of Körber ended up stretching into a “couple of hours of good conversation.” During this conversation, the owner described how the Körber company is limited in its physical expansion in Germany so the ability to expand in South Carolina is a huge benefit to them.

Not only will Körber bring more than 75 new jobs to South Carolina, these jobs that they will bring will offer higher salaries.

“The average job pays around twenty to twenty-five dollars an hour with Körber,” Representative Pitts explained.

Another company they met with was Michelin whose North American headquarters is located in Greenville, South Carolina. By the end of this meeting, both Representatives were reassured about Michelin’s commitment to keep their headquarters located in South Carolina.

“The personal contact of an elected official showing that direct personal interest, as opposed to a staffer, had a very visible impact on those owners and I think it will pay positive dividends in the future.”

Representatives Pitts and Duncan were also able to meet with some of the suppliers of these two companies.

“Michelin and Körber were both very willing to contact their suppliers and ask if they would talk with us about locating some of their industry in South Carolina,” Representative Pitts said.

These meetings were also successful and the suppliers are currently looking into the possibility of moving some of their operations to South Carolina. One of the major incentives for relocating to South Carolina would be a cut in transportation costs.

When asked about how successful this trip was, Representative Pitts answered that he believes this trip could have generated billions of dollars in revenue for South Carolina. He elaborated by stating that not only will there be more jobs, but the “products that [these companies] will be producing in South Carolina will be sold and taxed in South Carolina.”

Overall, the most important thing that Representative Pitts learned from this trip is that in the future, “it would be a benefit to South Carolina to make sure that on commerce trips legislators are involved.” The reason for this is that the European companies place such a high value on having personal contact with an elected official. This personal contact is one of the sole reason Pitts believes that the trade mission was such a success.