The competition between West Point, Georgia and Mississippi for the new Kia Plant is heating up to a fever pitch, and Mississippi is shooting the moon in its attempt to lure the company to their state. Georgia is not standing pat as it is offering the most generous package in the history of the state to the Kia Motors Corp.
What is at stake is thousands of jobs at the plant plus thousands more at supplier companies that open up around the main plant.
In Mississippi, a state with fewer souls than metro Atlanta, such numbers seem justified. As Joe Max Higgins, head of economic development in Columbus, Miss., put it: “There’s no sense in taking powder home, boys. Let’s shoot it.”
Georgia is hardly retreating. The Peach State incentive package, through well short of $1 billion, is among the most generous the state has ever offered.
Kia is expected as soon as Tuesday to announce its first U.S. assembly plant, a $1.2 billion facility that could create 2,500 jobs. Kia has looked at three sites near LaGrange for its plant, all of them in Troup County along I-85.
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