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Gov. Brian Kemp has announced two more Korean suppliers for the Hyundai electric-vehicle plant in Bryan County, bringing the tally of supplier-announced jobs to about 4,000.
Together, the two most recent arrivals represent the prospect of 1,140 new positions for the state.
On March 6, PHA said it would invest $67 million to put a new factory in Chatham County, creating more than 400 jobs.
PHA is a tier-one supplier, meaning that its door modules, latches, locks and hinges go directly from its factories into the original-equipment manufacturer’s assembly line, in this case the Hyundai “Metaplant” that has committed $5.54 billion to coastal Georgia. PHA operates a U.S. headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., and serves Kia as well as other brands beyond Hyundai.
Founded in 1985, PHA is based in the Atlanta sister city of Daegu, the located at the center of a South Korean auto parts manufacturing belt in the southern part of that country. PHA also has facilities in Vietnam, China, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, India and elsewhere.
The new location, one of multiple sites in the United States, will be located at the Savannah Chatham Manufacturing Center, a site less than two miles off Interstate 16 that has been vetted through the Georgia Ready for Accelerated Development process.
The GRAD certification includes due diligence on zoning, environmental issues and endangered species investigation, utility services, wetlands delineation. More than 8,000 jobs have been created on GRAD sites throughout the state.
Sewon’s new $300 million Georgia investment plan
A few weeks before the PHA announcement, longtime Kia Georgia supplier Sewon America announced that it would invest $300 million for a stamped body components plant in the city of Rincon, creating 740 jobs and bringing its total employment in the state to 1,600.
A subsidiary of South Korea-based Sewon Precision Industry Co., Sewon America opened its first Georgia plant in LaGrange in 2008 with a $170 million investment, expanding twice to meet growing demand from the nearby Kia plant. The most recent investment in that facility was a $160 million infusion in 2018, less than a year before Mr. Kemp headed to Korea on his first economic development mission abroad.
“On my very first international trip as governor to Korea, I had the opportunity to congratulate Chairman (Moon-ki) Kim on the company’s then-recent expansion and discuss how we could continue to work together,” Mr. Kemp said in a news release. “I am proud that those discussions have now led to this announcement as Sewon America continues to grow their Georgia operations.”
With Sewon’s Effingham County factory, Mr. Kemp’s office said that all four counties that banded together to create the 2,900-acre site that wooed Hyundai have now received supplier investments; the $1.8 billion in commitments announced is already $800 million more than the $1 billion Hyundai initially said its suppliers would bring.
Rincon Mayor Ken Lee said in the governor’s release that the Sewon project will be the largest in the city’s history. It will be located in the Grande View Industrial Park.
Sewon is also based in Daegu and was founded in 1989.