"That's our first priority, is keeping our Michigan businesses here at home, and then seeing what we can bring in from the outside," Jakeway tells GlobeSt.com after participating in an event this week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Throughout 2004, the MEDC used tax credits for redevelopment of brownfield property and single-business tax credits to help spur projects large and small around the state. Recent examples of MEDC efforts include items as small as a $21,000 single-business tax credit toward a $210,000 private investment project to redevelop a former fire house inWyandotte into a retail/office complex; and a single-business tax credit of more than $1.7 million to help convince automotive supplier Affinia Group Inc. to locate its new headquarters in Pittsfield Township near Ann Arbor rather than at a competing site in the Toledo area.
In her 2004 State of the State address, Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced plans to use MEDC incentives to help make Michigan "a global economic powerhouse in the 21st century." In 2004, the MEDC says it contributed to projects that helped with the creation or retention of more than 54,000 jobs.
During a symposium Jakeway and the governor participated in Wednesday, Granholm told auto excecutives among her priorities is "exploding the number of engineers" in the state. Jakeway says that while MEDC is not involved in financing higher education programs in the state, the agency is working to promote the availability of an educated Michigan workforce and promoting high-technology automotive and other projects in the state. "We are evaluating our focus and getting a bit more focused on how we have to prioritize on projects that move Michigan forward," he adds.
In 2004, Granholm and others took a highly-publicized trip to Germany in an effort to lure foreign investment here. Some 3,700 foreign-based companies already have Michigan operations and Jakeway says in 2005, MEDC will be adding emphasis on its international recruitment efforts.
An example of such an effort came in mid-December in Marysville. The MEDC made a $1 million grant to the city to help provide infrastructure improvements needed to support the $8 million plant expansion there by Schefenacker Vision Systems Inc., a German company that makes automotive mirrors.
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