Before deciding where to build a new mushroom farm in the United States, Ronald Wilson wants to know where he can find some chicken manure.
Wilson, the CEO of Ireland-based Monaghan Mushrooms, said he needs to mix the waste with wheat straw, providing compost to make his mushrooms grow. If all goes well, he said, he wants to open a plant that could employ 700 people.
A team of state economic development officials jumped at the opportunity during a “matchmaking session” with Wilson at President Barack Obama’s second international investment summit in suburban Maryland, a sold-out event that drew executives from 70 foreign countries this week.
“We’re going to do our dangdest to find a source of chicken manure for you,” Kelly Anthon, the city administrator of Rupert, Idaho, told Wilson.
After successfully wooing companies from Ireland, Japan, Portugal, France, Germany and Canada in recent years, Idaho officials say they’re eyeing more foreign investment as a way to aid their economy and raise the state’s profile.
“Idaho’s the flyover state that’s going to take people by surprise,” said Jeff Sayer, director of the Idaho Department of Commerce. “We’re often forgotten.”
He said the state wants to do more business with both domestic and international companies. “We know it’s a global economy, and we want to be a part of it,” he said.
State officials say their work so far has been encouraging, with foreign companies investing $382 million in the state, creating about 835 jobs since 2008.
Frulact, a company from Portugal, plans to break ground soon on a $30 million fruit-processing plant in Rupert, which has a population of less than 6,000. The project is expected to create 100 jobs within five years.
“It’s huge – we haven’t had a new factory built in the city of Rupert for over 50 years,” Anthon said. “A big business is really important to a small town.”
And in December, Glanbia Foods, based in Ireland, announced an $82 million expansion for its manufacturing and production plants in Gooding and Twin Falls, construction projects that will help the company produce more cheese and whey.
“We would have had choices to set up a facility in Wisconsin and Illinois and Missouri and California, and all of those places may have been relevant – we chose to do it in Idaho,” said Daragh Maccabee, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Glanbia. “There’s a great pro-business attitude and there’s generally less regulation.”
Idaho occupied Booth 312 at this year’s summit at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md. The booth featured a huge banner with a black map of the United States, with the Gem State highlighted in white.
Jan Rogers, executive director of the Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization, said she wanted the map to catch the attention of passers-by.
“We’re coming to an international summit – so first of all, where is Idaho?” she asked. “Who would know anything about Idaho? I wanted to have a big map.”
As part of its marketing, the state brought in city and state employees who spoke Japanese, Spanish, German and Portuguese.
Mike Williams, the city administrator from Jerome, said he learned to speak Portuguese when he lived in Brazil from 2000 to 2002, part of a church mission. He said it came in handy when Rogers called him to talk with officials from Frulact.
“For me, it was perfect,” Williams said. “And it helped us establish a personal connection. . . . If that gives us a competitive advantage, great.”
The Idaho team also included Deborah Nelson, a Boise attorney who represented Frulact in a deal that was finalized in 2013. She said she learned then that foreign executives must contend not only with language and cultural barriers but a basic lack of knowledge of American customs.
“The biggest role we play is as an adviser,” Nelson said. “And not necessarily just on legal issues. Sometimes it’s: ‘How do you open a bank account?’”
All 50 states sent representatives, a sign of strong backing for Obama’s “SelectUSA Investment Summit.” The administration sponsored the first such summit in 2013.
In a keynote speech Monday at the event, Obama described the gatherings as “a kind of one-stop shop, sort of a matchmaking service for investment.”
Noting that the United States now ranks first in attracting foreign investment, Obama said his SelectUSA program already has assisted more than 1,000 foreign companies, generating more than $20 billion of additional investment in the U.S.
As an example, he cited a Canadian company, Peds Legwear, which he said invested $7 million to rescue a failing sock company in Burke County, N.C., saving 45 jobs.
“So the bottom line is this: America is proudly open for business, and we want to make it as simple and as attractive for you to set up shop here as is possible,” Obama told the foreign executives.
Not everyone’s on board with the chase for more foreign investment.
“There’s no shortage of capital in the United States,” Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida said in an interview. “It’s not as if we’re a poor, desperate country like New Guinea and we need foreigners to come in with their money. . . . The foreign investment is not meeting any particular need that we cannot meet on our own.”
Grayson is using that argument to criticize Obama’s plan to expand trade in the Pacific Rim, saying foreign interests already own one-seventh of all U.S. assets and that the U.S. trade deficit would only grow. “The end result of this will be that we’ll own nothing,” he said.
Sayer of the Idaho Department of Commerce said states shouldn’t try to block foreign capital.
“We need to embrace it and use it to fuel our economy,” he said.
At the summit, state officials could meet privately with foreign executives in “matchmaking rooms” if both sides agreed to participate. Some called it a form of “speed-dating.”
At their matchmaking session at Table 4 in Room 6, Idaho officials made their best pitch to Wilson, who had many questions for them.
Would there be enough migrant labor for his mushroom farm? Yes, they said.
Is the state close to major markets? Seattle and Portland aren’t too far, they replied.
They asked Wilson whether he could substitute hog waste for chicken waste.
“It’s possible,” Wilson said. “I’d have to talk to my technical people, but chicken is preferable.”
After the meeting, Rogers called it a success.
“We don’t have chickens, so we have to figure out a way to source it,” she said. “But we found out what we needed to do the followup. And that’s what speed-dating is all about.”
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