A plastic injection molding manufacturer will announce next month that it will open a plant in Northwest Arkansas, said Grant Tennille, executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.
The commission also is negotiating with another plastics manufacturer to locate in Arkansas.
Tennille, who made the announcement Thursday at a commission meeting, did not identify the companies nor indicate how many jobs would be associated with the projects.
The projects are related to Wal-Mart’s campaign to buy an additional $50 billion in U.S.-made products over the next decade. They are in addition to toy-maker Redman & Associates, which announced in October it will transfer operations from a facility in China to Rogers, and another unnamed Chinese manufacturer that has signed a deal to move some of its operations to Northwest Arkansas.
The manufacturer that is expected to make the February announcement produces low-cost, high-margin products, Tennille said.
“The volume of the things they make is enormous,” Tennille said in an interview.
Both of the prospective companies are Wal-Mart vendors who have offices in Northwest Arkansas, Tennille said.
“We’re talking to Wal-Mart on a weekly, if not daily, basis,” he said. “They have been fantastic about identifying prospects, about setting up the initial meetings and about helping companies do a lot of the math on the front end to determine whether or not manufacturing in the United States is an economic proposition.”
Wal-Mart isn’t offering to pay these companies more for their products, but it is negotiating the length of the contract, Tennille said.
“Instead of one year, for example, [Wal-Mart] may give them three years and that allows the company to recoup its investment,” Tennille said. “They are giving the company longer-term certainty.”
Mike Malone, chief executive officer of the Northwest Arkansas Council, declined to comment about the companies. He said Arkansas and western Arkansas are poised to benefit from Wal-Mart’s program to buy more American products.
“We’ve already seen Redman come back to the United States,” Malone said. “I know there are going to be more in the pipeline.”
Wal-Mart doesn’t play favorites when it comes to which state gets a project, Tennille said.
During Thursday’s meeting, Becky Thompson, deputy director of the commission, said the commission will send a team to London in July to attend the annual Farnborough International Airshow.
Clif Chitwood, the economic development director in Mississippi County, will travel with the commission to the air show, Thompson said. The Arkansas Aeroplex, formerly Eaker Air Force Base, is in Mississippi County.
The commission also is trying to persuade representatives from the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill and the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field in Little Rock to attend the air show, Thompson said.
Arkansas has been the only southern state absent from the air show in the past few years.
“It’s an expensive proposition, but we have determined that it’s time for us to be there,” Tennille said.
There is no better place to market sites such as the Hawker Beechcraft facility at the Little Rock airport to “virtually every company in the aerospace business,” Tennille said.
Business, Pages 27 on 01/11/2014