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WEST POINT, GA-Kia Motors Corp., which had planned elaborate ground-breaking ceremonies April 26 and again on May 10, has cancelled the construction start of its $1.2-billion, one-million-sf manufacturing plant. The industrial asset is set to rise in this town of 4,000 residents, about 75 miles southwest of Downtown Atlanta.

However, sources in the office of Gov. Sonny Perdue, who personally signed the deal with Kia Motors in Seoul in March, tell GlobeSt.com plans for the plant are still alive, even though a third ground-breaking start hasn't been set. An alleged bribery scandal in South Korea, involving Kia Motors' parent, Hyundai Motor Group, caused the plant's delay here, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

The plant was tentatively scheduled to open by 2009, employing up to 2,500 workers in this west Georgia community, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. The state's deal with Kia was denied by government and local officials right up to the closing of the transaction on March 12. Kia had planned to produce an average 300,000 passenger cars annually, along with an undetermined number of SUVs or minivans.