News is good.
Georgia officials hope Kia plans go forward
By David Irvin
Montgomery Advertiser
dirvin@gannett.com
Georgia economic developers hope the news Friday that Korean prosecutors won’t indict the president of Kia Motors Corp. will allay fears the automotive company has suspended its plant in west Georgia.
Kia announced in early March it would build a $1.2 billion car plant in Troup County, Ga., but just weeks later Kia president Chung Eui-sun and his father, Chung Mong-koo, came under investigation for allegedly embezzling about $110 million.
Speculation that Kia had stopped the assembly plant project came to a boil in May when a Korean news report said the auto plant was indefinitely suspended.
“Everything is on schedule out there,” said Billy Head, the mayor of West Point, Ga. where the plant will be located.
“We have had meetings with (Kia) in the past couple of weeks discussing the needs for utilities and so forth. We expect to get some bulldozers out there and start moving dirt real soon,” Head said.
Korean prosecutors told Reuters news service they would not charge the son because his father was ultimately responsible.
“There is something too harsh in indicting the son when the person responsible for the wrongdoing has already been arrested and indicted,” Kang Chan-woo, a spokesman for the Korean prosecutors, told Reuters.
Alison Tyrer, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Economic Development, said she hopes the announcement will calm nerves over the outcome of the plant, especially since the groundbreaking ceremony has been pushed back at least once.
“Really nothing has changed from our perspective,” Tyrer said.
Local economic developers have said the Kia plant would provide extra opportunities to woo parts suppliers to the area that could also service the Hyundai plant in Montgomery.
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