One of the things that I have really come to love about the state of South Carolina is that it is a very business-friendly state. Every day there seems to be news of a new company relocating to South Carolina or news of an existing firm here in the state making some kind of expansion. $5 million, $10 million, $20 million etc. Some stories show much higher investments like Bosch committing $200+ million in South Carolina.
Then there was the BMW battery news that they have plans to spend $1.7B for their EV business. I know I’m missing the other battery announcements but I do want to call this next one out. It is the largest ever economic development announcement in South Carolina. A company called Redwood Materials announced that they plan to invest $3.5B into Berkeley County to build their battery manufacturing facility.
I had reached out last week to the South Carolina Department of Commerce on one of their LinkedIn posts. I had asked to see if they had data on what investment was looking like across the state by region. They kindly sent me this information. It’s accurate through 12-12-22 so it does not include this massive news about Redwood Materials spending $3.5B. That number will swing the results in favor of Low Country for sure.
South Carolina continues to be one of the leaders when it comes to the resurgence in U.S. manufacturing. It sure seems like the state is going to benefit greatly when it comes to the reshoring of manufacturing and tighting up of supply chains. It’s a business-friendly state. The people are hospitable. The population really is from all over the country and all over the world. They generally like limited goverment. The weather isn’t bad. We have access to the mountain and the ocean. We have the Port of Charleston with direct access to the Upstate with the Inland Port of Greer. We have some worldclass universities with Clemson and the University of South Carolina. Most of the state is within an 8-12 hour drive to all the major metros along the east coast as well as up through the midwest. From a transportation, supply chain and distribution location, there aren’t much better. Oh…and the prices of our real estate is substantially lower than nearby Charlotte and Atlanta.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage through the planet, it’s effects are certainly hitting home. BMW has shut down and just announced that it will extend the shut down until April 30, 2020 at this point.
BMW is an enormous employer here in the Upstate employing more than 11,000 people. They are a huge driver to economic development, growth and prosperity to the area. According to the Upstate Business Journal article about BMW, they quote BMW as stating, “we continue to be concerned about the health and safety of the entire BMW workforce. During this time, additional cleaning and disinfecting will be performed at work stations throughout the plant.” Thank you BMW for all that you do for our community and for working hard to keep your employees safe especially at this time.
Let’s hope we can all get back to work safely and soon!