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[Music]
ladies and gentlemen the program will
begin in five minutes please take your
seats and remember to silence your cell
phones at this time
[Music]
ladies and gentlemen please take your
seats the summit is about to begin all
electronic devices should be silenced at
this time
[Music]
ladies and gentlemen please rise and
remain standing for the presentation of
the colors and the national anthem
performed by the United States Army
brass quintet
[Music]
ladies and gentlemen please welcome the
Honorable Karen Dunn Kelly acting deputy
secretary for the United States
Department of Commerce good morning on
behalf of the United States Department
of Commerce
welcome to select USA summit we are very
excited to have you here and to
celebrate this year's theme invest here
grow here and succeed here this is the
fifth summit of its kind and
participants in the four preceding
summits announced nearly 93 billion
dollars of Greenfield FDI in the United
States supporting more than a hundred
and forty thousand jobs
we look forward to increasing that
number due to the connections and
contacts that you will make over the
next couple of days at the Department of
Commerce our mission is to create
conditions for economic growth and
opportunity across our 13 bureaus and
over 47,000 employees we are engaged in
that work of advancing that core mission
we are fortunate to have a leader that
truly understands the mission of
economic growth and opportunity and
embodies investment growth and excess
and success his entire life it is my
honor and privilege this morning to
introduce you to this leader of the
United States Secretary of Commerce
Wilbur Ross secretary Ross was sworn in
by Vice President Mike Pence as the 39th
Secretary of Commerce On February 28th
2017 in his role he serves as the
principal voice of business in the Trump
administration he ensures that US
entrepreneurs and businesses have the
tools they need to create jobs and
economic opportunity the former chairman
of WL Ross and company secretary Ross
has over 55 years of investment banking
and private equity experience he was
named by Bloomberg Markets as one of the
50 most influential global finance
people in the global finance secretary
Ross is the only individual elected to
both the private equity Hall of Fame and
the turnaround management Hall of Fame
we at the Department of Commerce are
very fortunate to have a leader with the
character experience and intellect as
secretary Ross Thank You secretary Ross
for what you do for our department on
behalf of the people of America every
day and we also very much appreciate
you taking the time to kick off the 2018
select USA summit so with that will you
please join me in welcoming the United
States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross
thanks God thank you Karen for that
wonderful introduction and good morning
everyone
it's my Kani heritable louder there we
go that's the Select USA spirit it's my
pleasure to welcome you to the 2018
select USA Investment Summit this is an
exciting event for me for the Department
of Commerce for the economic development
officials here from 50 states and
territories and for our entire country
this is the second select USA summit
that I have hosted and this year we will
have more than three thousand delegates
from 66 countries including delegates
from 15 countries that weren't here
before on behalf of President Trump and
all Americans welcome welcome to all of
you this year
we have scheduled 2200 one-on-one
meetings between state economic
development officials and
representatives from foreign countries
and companies attending the summit we
have also helped the attending foreign
delegations plan 21 trips visiting
states and local communities as
potential investment opportunities and
thank you to our dedicated foreign
commercial service officers who have
been so instrumental in introducing
foreign companies to the United States
and to all that the United States has to
offer we also have another new record
fourteen American ambassadors to various
countries then 18 sheep submission
are here thank you for traveling with
your delegations of foreign business
partners from your overseas posts to
give you an indication of how important
this event is to the US government there
will be five cabinet secretaries in
attendance than addressing this group
over the next two days
moreover ten state governors are with us
this year that's up from only two who
attended last year's summit in
alphabetical order the governors are
governor Bevin of Kentucky governor
Bryant of Mississippi governor Fallon of
Oklahoma Governor Herbert of Utah
governor Hickenlooper of Colorado
governor Halcomb of Indiana governor
otter of Ojai Idaho governor Ricketts of
Nebraska governor Rosello of Puerto Rico
and Governor Walker of Wisconsin let's
have a good hand for the governors who
are here
I Thank You governors for making this
summit a priority in your hectic
schedules this is the premier global
event for foreign direct investment
we're here to help your companies grow
and prosper in the most open and dynamic
market in the world the path that you
are starting at the investment summit is
one that will lead to success not only
in the United States but the world over
as the saying goes if you can be
successful in the United States you can
be successful anywhere this is the fifth
select USA Investment Summit since its
inaugural year in 2013 more than 93
billion dollars of foreign direct
investment has been announced by past
participants in this event
there are also some blockbuster
investments from foreign companies that
soon we'll be producing here and selling
their output directly into American
customers and into far in export markets
let me mention a few of them Formosa
Plastics group of Taiwan is investing
nine point four billion dollars in a
massive chemical complex in st. James
Parish Louisiana over the next ten years
building the new facility will generate
8050 construction jobs than 1,200
permanent jobs and get this the average
pay of those jobs will be eighty four
thousand five hundred dollars more than
sixty percent higher than the median
household income in st. James Parish
representatives from Volvo cars have
been working with select
USA staff since 2014 they are now
investing an additional five hundred
twenty million dollars in their
production center in Berkeley County
South Carolina for the company's new
line of sedans and mid-sized crossovers
Volvo will hire more than 1,900 workers
and its investment is expected to create
an additional two thousand indirect jobs
Bobo's essman in South Carolina
now totals more than 1 billion dollars
Fiat another car company planning a 1
billion dollar investment to move
production of heavy-duty trucks from its
plant in Mexico to a factory in Michigan
the company says the move was
facilitated due to the tax reform bill
that was signed into law by President
Trump last December Japan based taejun
broke ground earlier this month on a 643
million dollar carbon fiber production
plant in Greenwood County South Carolina
the company will hire 291 American
workers and company executives said that
the state and local economic development
officials welcomed them like they were
quote family family last year takagawa
corporation a Japanese company met with
representatives from Kentucky's Economic
Development Office attending select USA
summit over the course of succeeding
months takagawa executives met with
state officials in this past April it
broke ground in Bardstown Kentucky on a
46 million dollar flexible packaging and
hyper form
Phil plant that plan is being built on
an 18 acre greenfield site and will
employ a hundred eighty new workers
swiss-based
Lanza biologics is expanding its
operation in Portsmouth New Hampshire
they're adding 1 million square feet and
they expect to create a thousand new
jobs some investments are not as big
financially but are equally as important
last year at the Select USA Summit I
participated in a new business
announcement with the French software
and hardware company clack soon at the
time the company announced just a five
million dollar investment in the United
States but this month
Klaxons secured 50 million dollars in
new venture capital funding so they are
off to the races and the list goes on
in fact this summit will have more new
business investment announcements than
any of the prior summits this afternoon
we'll be announcing two new foreign
investments in Ohio plus new production
projects in Idaho and Virginia
investments in the projects being
announced during the summit total more
than 600 million dollars and it
demonstrates why this conference exists
to boost the growth and prospects of all
businesses that invest in the United
States there really is no better place
in the world to invest 80 Kearney
consulting firm ranked the United States
as the best destination country for
foreign investment for the sixth
consecutive year
and there are good reasons why the
United States has the world's
third-largest population with 325
million savvy consumers we maintain a
strong adherence to the rule of law and
the protection of your intellectual
property that's your most valuable asset
we provide unique opportunities to tap
into advanced research and the
innovation and engineering capabilities
that are plentiful throughout our
country we have adopted strong economic
growth policies including a new low
corporate tax rate in drastic reductions
in regulations there's ready access to
capital inexpensive and plentiful energy
natural resources and a skilled
energized and optimistic workforce and

              you
to make it easy for you to invest and
earn profits having the world's most
innovative open system of capitalism
that's the reason why the United States
continues to create entirely new
industries that generate strong economic
growth with close to record levels of
employment
please use every networking opportunity
throughout the summit from coffee breaks
to the time spent on the exhibition hall
to make as many connections as possible
you can also use our select USA summit
app to choose meetings to attend in
search for partners we are doing
everything in our power
the government to assure that your
investment pays dividends long into the
future thank you again for being here
and please enjoy the time you are able
to spend in the United States
I hope this conference turns out to be
eminently successful for you thank you
ladies and gentlemen please welcome to
the stage mr. Michael Young president of
Texas A&amp;M; University to moderate a
discussion on success in the US market
good morning or as we say in Texas howdy
we are delighted to be here today this
is an exciting panel each of the
companies represented today have very
interesting and diverse experiences in
the United States and their decision to
come here and what they intend to do so
I want to briefly introduce each of our
panelists and then invite them to talk a
little bit about their decisions their
experiences things that made it easier
things that made it more challenging
both in terms of decision to come to the
United States as well as the geographic
decisions that each made and I think
think this was coin semental but you'll
see a certain southern theme I think in
much of what we talked about today but
first lets me introduce mr. Jason Hoff
he is with mercedes-benz US
international he's the president and
chief executive officer I am there many
things one can say about his his career
having been with mercedes-benz for many
years the vice president of logistics
and others in the USA plants in Alabama
but also having served in the
headquarters in Stuttgart Germany I
think among the many attributes that one
might say has sense his ascension to the
CEO mercedes-benz us-international they
have increased their production by 50%
and we're sure that's because he came to
the United States as well
secondly mr. Luigi la Sorachi who is
with sofa del a company that has the
major European presence meticulous and
will tell you a little bit more about
his company as well keeping with the
some southern theme mr. lezzer ecchi has
a MBA from the University of South
Carolina so we're keeping that southern
theme
in tact today our final panelist is mr.
Timothy Madden mr. Madden is the chief
operating officer of oxy channel which
is a chemical company from Brazil he is
a Michigan State graduate but has also
worked both in the US and extensively
overseas as well with a number of
companies including Novi on BF Goodrich
and Dow as well and has become part of
oxy tino as they are planning an
aggressive expansion in the United
States and globally as well so with that
let me turn it over to mr. mr. Hoff we
are delighted to have you here and look
forward to hearing Thank You dr. Jung as
mentioned my name is Jason off and I'm
the president CEO of mercedes-benz us
international based out of Vance Alabama
very near Tuscaloosa dr. Young and I
have one thing in common now we're both
big fans of SEC football so really happy
to be here I want to thank the
Department of Commerce for inviting
mercedes-benz to join this event today
in the next couple days we've been in
the South now in our operations for over
20 years many of you might remember we
kind of shook up the automotive world in
1993 when we announced not only where
we're gonna build our first automotive
plant outside of Germany in the United
States but we were gonna build it in the
deep south in Alabama we had some pretty
modest plans back then about a 300
million dollar investment gonna hire a
little over a thousand people and have
an annual capacity of somewhere around
65,000 cars fast-forward 20 plus years
we've now invested over 6 billion into
our operations in Alabama we produced we
have an annual capacity of approximately
300,000 vehicles we're the home of the
SUVs the large sized SUVs that you see
on the road from mercedes-benz so GL EA
GLS or GL e coupe comes out of our plant
we also build C classes since 2014 and
clearly it's been a success story and if
you heard the introduction talking a
little bit about you know invest
grow and succeed here in the US that's
clearly been the path that Mercedes has
been on over the past 20 years why the
southeast and why the u.s. first of all
mercedes-benz in the early 90s had made
a decision a strategic decision to
expand the product portfolio but also
start to look at producing vehicles in
markets closer to the markets that we
sold those vehicles as a mentioned that
was the first full-scale automotive
plant for mercedes-benz outside of
Germany and we also knew that there was
a growth in the SUV market coming you
know so those two things led to us
coming to the US and after an extensive
site selection process we've decided to
set roots in Alabama Alabama was an
interesting choice back in 1993 or
really all the way up until we produced
the first car in 1997 Alabama had built
a total of zero cars we were the first
automotive manufacturer to go to this
south that deep south in Alabama since
then it's been a transformation and I
was talking a little bit to dr. young
about my experience over the past 20 to
25 years in Alabama and how much has
changed down there just from the
automotive sector side we have for
full-scale automotive OEMs of just alone
in Alabama Toyota has an engine plant up
in northern Alabama that the Hyundai has
in a plant in southern just south of
Montgomery in Honda also has a facility
east of Birmingham
so now Alabama produces about million
cars a year to Yoda Mazda just recently
announced an another plant that they're
gonna build in northern Alabama and you
know Mercedes feels that hopefully we
had a little bit to do with that growth
that you see in the southeast and
interestingly enough they're almost they
all are foreign automotive manufacturers
and the growth that you see in the
automotive industry especially from a
manufacturing job creation standpoint
are coming from the foreign OMS much
more so than let's say the
the big three or the local who EMS so
Alabama itself and you can say this for
a lot of areas of the US offered us
really three things first of all a great
flexible workforce we were very
impressed at the very from our very
first visits there about the willingness
of people wanting to work they wanted to
be engaged they're not there just for a
job they're really looking at it as a
career of the approximately thousand
eleven hundred people that we had at the
beginning six to seven hundred of those
team members still work in our operation
so we have a retention rate of you know
people coming on 20 years of somewhere
in the sixty to seventy percent range
very flexible workforce they will do
anything if we need to change schedules
or if we need to move people make
changes they're ready to do it the
second thing that the south and
specially Alabama offered obviously was
a great location
we had a location that logistically met
our needs had the right infrastructure
in and around the facility and wasn't so
far away from some of the suppliers and
other OEMs that I always started to
migrate south at that time and then last
but not least and in my comments there
what I think has been really one of the
biggest keys to our success is the
partnership that we've had with the
people and the local entities that run
Alabama whether it be state city County
they came out they made a big commitment
to us we made a big commitment to them
and in the end we've both held on to our
commitments from the very beginning and
that speaks a lot for the state of
Alabama speaks a lot for obviously
mercedes-benz and has really been a key
to our success you know when we want to
make a change or make an expansion we
have the right people to talk to they're
ready to come to the table and help
support us whether that be training or
infrastructure developments or other
things and they're always willing to
listen to suggestions and proposals from
us so you know I'm excited to be here
looking forward to answering any
questions and themes and thank you dr.
young so thank you very much stretching
yeah
morning thanks for inviting me here
congratulation for my last name
pronunciation one of the best ever heard
nobody of you I believe knows our
company so Fidel softly is not a
luxurious hotel chain is not an Italian
fashion company we are producing toilet
paper
unfortunately somebody produced that to
the the companies originally I mean
actually that quarter is base in Italy
not far from from Florence was born
fifty-two years ago I mean since then I
mean the company has quite a strong
growth today we are in 13 different
countries in Europe and since 2012 in in
us just to give a few numbers the
company is employing six six thousand
three hundred people 1200 a year in the
States we have a total turnover last
year of 2.3 billion dollars or is not a
small not a big company but I mean
explaining this to continent on our
sector we are the second largest
producer in Europe the sixth worldwide
why we invest in in us me for sure there
was a need for growth having already a
quite an important position in in Europe
imme was impossible to think about a
large expansion over there so looking
around different possibilities were
chosen us I mean for several reason
generic one personal one and also a
specific to this industry
Genet generic reasons I mean one is
language is even domain
my English is not really great but I can
assure you that there are more different
difficult languages worldwide in English
so for sure is an important factor but
also me a diversification of strategy we
didn't want to be only on one continent
Europe want to be also I mean in another
one and also we wanted to balance our
currency exchange risk we are buying
most of the raw materials nominated in
dollars while at the moment we are
selling in Euros I said the moment
because I don't know in the in your
future what is going to happen to the
Europe due to the Europe so being here
for sure is is a way of balancing that
that risk business climate for sure the
u.s. US states are generally quite
friendly with the with business are also
legal certainty is a very important
factor a very good support from local
bodies especially in some of the US
states are has been very important there
is also a personal reason that mr. Ian
just mentioned before I spent my best
years here in the States
was my twenties because I got my master
degree at the University of South
Carolina and being as a student I always
thought that I have to come back and
give back where I learn and my
experience so I always thought that one
day I should have come here and do
something and contribute the way I could
to the growth of
of these of this country but then also
there are specific reasons related to
this industry I mean for sure is the
largest consumer country in terms of per
capita usage still there is still a
quite a significant growth but then also
there are particularly things one is
that they are not really very many
players in this industry in us so big
supermarket chains big retailers are
looking for newcomers in order to have a
higher competition than what there is
now there is also in us quite a strong
growth of the private label business
private label and I mean product made
under the name of a supermarket chain I
mean Kroger with toilet paper with a
brand Kroger and so on that market is
relatively small in US compared to
Europe but is growing very fast so
mainly we are we came here to us to have
the opportunity to participate the
strong growth and the last one is
technology the European technology in
particular the Italian technology in
this sector is his leader I mean more
than 50% of the technology in the tissue
paper business is coming from from Italy
actually from my city that is in Italy
that is called Luke so if we arrived in
all of these we believe we have taken a
right decision now
[Music]
how did occur how did we arrive in in
u.s. we started with a medium-sized
acquisition 2012 and that was followed
by a another one but then I start to
come here
select use ASL to know that there are
also better possibilities than done
equations and also is what we really
prefer to build Greenfields operation
some of you may ask Hawaii
different sites across Europe across us
may you have to know our product is very
light in weight and very bulky we need
to be close to consumption areas for the
right reason at the moment we have a
plant in Nevada one in Oklahoma one in
Mississippi one in Florida one that is
almost completed in Circleville Ohio and
the sixth one is in Green Bay Wisconsin
there's been a quite strong growth I'm
quite a large investment the one that we
have made here in u.s. I had to take
this event because I mean this is my
fourth year that I'm coming to this
event I found it very fruitful in a few
days you're going to have for those that
are new to meet many many states many
potential future partner here I mean I
have the possibility to to meet with you
Ohio people with them we have found a
very good relationship and we have
developed that site not far from
Columbus Ohio and recently as probably
some of you knows we have announced a
new greenfield site in in Oklahoma
town that is call in all I'm not far
from tools but also there are other
people here there are other the industry
freaking just wanted to say that I found
here my general contractor the general
contractor for for the Iowa and also for
the the Oklahoma one so at the moment
very good experience not really many
things to say all they're probably one
thing probably to gas passes away is a
key raw material in our industry in us
is plenty of gas but one thing that we
have found that is the pipeline system
and the network still has to do grown
significantly is not very far to find
site with a gas pipeline close by
especially in some of the US states the
other thing that have to say even though
in some area for sure is easier to find
skilled people in some other areas not
the turnover in our case has been quite
high and especially is quite high when
the unemployment rate is very very low I
have to say that is a while maybe very
good to have a very low unemployment
rate is not all the time positive not
only because people are leaving the
company because of a higher salary or
because they have a discussion with
their superiors it's because there is a
lack or a low interest for the people to
to learn to be more competitive because
why should I care if I'm going to lose
the job today when tomorrow morning and
I can find another one
so there is not know really much
competition among workers most in some
areas where we are being some people
really they don't care to improve
themselves because as I was saying it's
very easy to find another job
the following day so sometime a to low
unemployment rate may not be positive
but just what I wanted to say thank you
thank you very much yes
thanks dr. Jung I want to thank the
Select USA committee for inviting oxy
1000 here we've had a relationship with
the Department of Commerce and we've
even had meetings with secretary Ross in
in our home country which is Brazil this
is just an amazing forum and I say that
from experience
this is actually my eighth market
startup in different parts of the world
I've done startup in Britain Belgium one
in Japan one in China Malaysia India as
well as Spain and so this is I'm
actually from America but this is my
first major launch project in the States
I've started with oxy 1000 about two
years back as the chief operating
officer and responsible to organize the
startup effort here in the US you might
not know oxy 10 oh he may not even know
our parent company our parent company is
called ultra par ultra par is the in the
top 5 largest companies in Brazil it's
also in the fortune 500 global fortune
500 so it's it's a rather large company
in total we have diverse operations in
Brazil but not so many operations
overseas it's a company of 16,000 almost
17,000 employees but out of those 17,000
employees only 4% of them are outside of
Brazil so this move to the US for us was
a very brave move it's a it's a big move
for us and one that is extremely
exciting for us now we didn't just start
this journey today obviously we started
this journey about 10 years back we
started out with a small trading company
located in New Jersey and then over time
we studied the market five years back we
bought a large piece of land in Texas
it's located in Pasadena Texas which is
right in a petrochemical complex in the
Gulf we chose it for the reason of being
close to our raw materials also with the
enhanced oil recovery and also the
fracking in the US the ethylene prices
are extremely low here so it's very very
good competitiveness for us and that
factored into our decision we also
started simultaneously our pre marketing
for our plant and then we started our
economic analysis to see how feasible
the plant would be in the US and I'll
talk a little bit more about that
economic analysis later in the pre
marketing a little bit later from there
then we started to look at technology
and I think you you'll have noticed that
there are a lot of options in the u.s.
from from the standpoint of technology
we were looking for a development lab to
help modify our products for the US
market
what we ended up doing was searching
different locations and we ended up at
the University of Southern Mississippi
and at an operation called the
accelerator which allowed lab space for
us and we brought our equipment in we
ended up with seven PhDs in place and
we've got a lot of developments out of
that lab here today so that brings us up
to the point of you know basically a
launch of the project it's a the project
itself is a very modern technology it's
the most state-of-the-art technology in
the field of chemistry that we're
involved in it's a hundred in seventy
kilotons capacity and that
for those who you know maybe not
familiar with the chemical industry that
represents about 10% of the US market
for this particular chemistry which is
called non ionic surfactants so it's as
I said a very big move on our part to
come into the u.s. I'll give you some
idea of some of the lessons learned that
I would you know like to pass along and
some things you might want to think
about the first one you've heard a
little bit earlier which is about
location again that was important to us
raw material wise Freight wise both from
the port and the rail lines so I think
you know choosing the up choosing the
location is is extremely important to
the whole thing I'll mention another
factor that factors in into this as well
which is the scale what we found as we
started to do our economic study in the
US was that the cost of labor the cost
of infrastructure and the cost of
regulation is very high in the US and
it's something that you definitely need
to take into consideration in your
economic models and because of that we
decided on a large scale plant a reason
being is that you need to spread those
costs over the volume that you're
producing so scale is something
definitely to take into consideration
another big effort that we put on was a
pre marketing effort in that effort we
moved massive amount of material from
our Brazilian plants in our Mexican
plants into the US market the reason we
did this was for a few one is to make
sure that we had the production capacity
utilized in our plant certainly but
probably more importantly is to develop
those relationships with the customers I
would say that the US customers are
definitely difficult customers there
this is a market where the where these
customers are spoiled in a way with the
choices they have a lot of good choices
in the marketplace here and so
understanding well the customers is very
very important
bringing a plant and not understanding
the cost
murrs can be a very painful experience
and so we've used the last three years
to build up the market and to build
relationships customers in the US expect
reliability they don't have big supply
chain storage inside of their plants and
so it's very important that you've
worked out that supply chain and that
you've proved your reliability before
you start the the next thing that I'd
like to say after that is the
customization of the products and the
development of the products the
continued development of the products is
very important I mentioned that we used
the University of Southern Mississippi
as our a site for starting up our lab
process which was important because the
the the products that we sell in Brazil
when we tried to sell those in the US we
found that there's some slight changes
that need to be made and that R&amp;D;
facility with the u.s. people inside the
R&amp;D; facility was very essential to it
even for advanced technology as well it
becomes important and in this case we
were working with Texas A&amp;M; dr. Young's
University on some advanced technology
in oil and gas and so I think it's very
important to think on the technology
point of thing of things the last point
that I would bring up is on people we do
I know
Luigi mentioned that you know there is
you know issues with labor and so forth
so it's something that you do need to
pay attention to but I'd also say
there's a lot of very good people here
in the US that you can bring together
and form a team to develop the market
and develop the business that you'll
have here in the US one of the points
that I'd bring forward as well though is
pay a lot of attention to connection of
the US team together with your home
market team so that you can get the full
strength of that and you might think
that that's an easy thing to do but it's
actually it's it's not it's something
that takes some time and it takes a lot
of care of the leadership to make sure
that there's a good communication
between those and you gain the full you
know power of your company here in the
US so we're actually just days away from
starting up our large
I'm very excited about it our company is
very excited about it our customers are
excited about it and we're looking
forward to the next step building out
the remainder of the capacity we have
available with you know customers in the
marketplace and then continuing to build
on the success here in the US thank you
[Applause]
thank you to all of our panelists very
different kinds of experiences and
different themes I'm hearing run run
through this certainly the issue of
being closer to the consumers the
workforce questions of of transportation
of infrastructure so forth to two things
that I see particularly struck a bit as
we talk about the South one of the
things that over the last 10 or 15 years
that has been interesting to me is to
see the rise in certain kind of support
services certainly we talked about
workforce and the rise of universities
has been that's been an important
variable in terms of their development I
mean Texas A&amp;M; right now we have about
23,000 engineering students of which
probably about 20% end up going and
working for companies who are foreign
based and working here in the United
States but but our foreign based but
also the technology part of it that mr.
man you mentioned in particular we do
about a billion dollars worth extramural
funded research on an annual basis about
350 million of that is with corporations
in partnership with corporations and so
there's other kinds of infrastructure
that that you have income to the US has
also enhanced opportunities and
developments here in the US with
traditional American institutions as
well and I think that's been been very
interesting but you all have a somewhat
different nuance on it in terms of being
some are in mass consumer more in two of
you in mass consumer markets - one in
you know somewhat more specialized
market being closed matters having an
American
orientation to the product line seems to
be important but let me reverse this
just a little bit and ask you we have a
lot of state officials here a lot of
federal officials here you talked
particularly about some of the
challenges in the regulatory environment
and that there there's sometimes high
costs of doing business in certain ways
can can you identify some of those
things that would make it even would
facilitate even better in terms of state
paying attention to particular
environment or the federal government
paying attention to the business
environment I think that one thing that
we have seen is states especially in the
southeast are very focused on supporting
training efforts we talked about we've
all talked about workforce in one form
or another these states are have a lot
of good programs Alabama has I think one
of the best programs of providing
different training programs to get
people ready for employment in for
example the automotive industry or other
industries there are now programs that
are also supported by the US government
related to workforce development and one
of the feedbacks interestingly I hear
from especially from suppliers and you
know the real ripple effect of the
automotive automotive OAM isn't so much
the jobs that the OEM creates it's
actually the jobs that are created from
all of the supply base that comes around
with it
we have about 3,700 team members right
now we have over 7,000 people that come
on our site through our gates every day
and you know the multiplying factor of
the suppliers is very big so we're very
focused on workforce development in our
region for some of the same reasons that
my colleagues states have mentioned but
there is a lot of red tape still when it
comes to getting funding and other
things that is available and being
provided by different departments with
whether it be on a federal level or in a
state level and one of the things we've
been working with is what do we need to
do to reduce those so back to your
question you know what whatever we can
do to try to reduce some of the
paperwork and the other red tape that it
goes through to be able to get the
funding
that's already been approved and
available down into those companies is
something that I think you know I would
obviously appeal for and something that
we really need to be pushing I had to
say in terms of regulatory bodies I mean
we are really being very very very
impressed as you may know the paper
industry has a quite a strong
environmental impact or we might have a
strong environmental impact because we
are heavy consumer of water energy gas
so we have to do with water consumption
clean water out also a burning gas I
mean we have a quite high co2 emissions
there for sure difference from state to
state that we were really impressed by
the short time period in which they they
gave us all permits and when I say all
it's really all in Italy for example you
know here took nine months to get air
the air permits that is the most
important one in Italy we will take
years and actually probably nobody knows
how many permits still we are missing in
Italy because nobody really know the
legislation so that sense relieve area
we have been really very very positively
impressed my comment on regulation is
that you know III I'm a little more
frustrated from that standpoint in that
I think the regulations are really good
the air air regulations in Texas are
really good I think they're important
the only issue I have is the speed that
it takes in my case how long it's taken
because we're able to put in equipment
we're able to do our project faster than
the approvals are able to come so
sometimes the approvals actually hit the
critical path of the project so I think
there still can be a lot done to speed
the process along
of these approvals but as far as the
regulations himself go I think there are
excellent regulations one thing that I
didn't mention that was brought up in
secretary Ross's initial statement was
about the tax reform act you know we did
a relook at our financials our NPV of
our project which we started three or
four years ago and then we're looking at
that today there's a significant jump in
the NPV due to the fact of this tax
legislation so that is definitely
something that will help from the
standpoint of your return on investment
so I think there's a good thing there
but also a thing that still needs some
work in my opinion which is on the speed
of getting the regulatory things
approved so I've mentioned a few themes
that seemed to me common and some that
seem different between and among your
three companies and I'm really delighted
that we have three very different
perspectives on investment and in
structure in terms of spending you
mentioned in particular relationship
between between the US operations and
your foreign operations and all of you
will have that in a fairly intense way
given your your presence in your home
country being so pronounced how do you
how do you deal with that how do you
ensure that there is a more seamless
company as opposed to two quite separate
companies number one and number two you
know we talked a lot about siting here
being closer to consumers to what degree
to you export from the US and and how
does that figure into your calculations
in terms of what you build here and how
you side well to your first question you
know we have standard operations
throughout the world now our operations
group is in the automotive industry
especially is very big on making sure we
have a standard production system that
you can easily see in each of our
operations so that's actually one of the
easier things I would say for
to deal with there is obviously the time
lags and other things that go along with
being that's a a company over here and
their parent company being over in
Stuttgart Germany so six hour time
difference East Coast seven hours for us
on Central Time
but you know the key thing is
communication in today's day and age
it's a heck of a lot easier than it was
twenty years ago you know cell phones
and things make communicating
videoconference tremendously more
successful and easier to deal with the
differences whether it be time and
distance being a global we are very
global company our operations here does
export two-thirds of our SUVs overseas
that was part of our business model from
the very beginning we said we want to
locate our SUV production here in the US
because it is one of the biggest markets
for SUVs but we are gonna build a car
for the world and so we we ship our car
to basic almost every country in the
world does add a tremendous amount of
complexity to our operations but it also
provides a lot of opportunities for US
markets automotive markets react
differently at different times to
different things and so it certainly
helps us from you know being able to
balance things out you know clearly
whatever the US government can do and
others you know to try to promote and
keep a fair you know an open trade with
some minimal barriers or things that are
going to support you know our business
model here and really our business model
at other operations I have to say your
mother company German for sure is much
easier to have a standards a
standardized and everything on the
procedure than an Italian company with a
good and about things of it let's say
that yet distances is a complication in
having standardized company each a each
company has its own DNA and is not that
he can pass that DNA just with a
procedure but but also with the way of a
company is doing things and at least on
our company mainly is to learn let's say
on-the-job learning by seeing how we
have done that there for sure there are
going to be there several spate rates
from Europe that they have moved to it
to the US mainly the task force is on
the newest plant that we are developing
I mean as soon as that the plan we
believe is quite well let's say
organized then we move with these people
to another site where eventually they
come back they come back to Europe we
have found out quite a strong ground
because people here in US us people they
are reacting quite quite well and we are
integrating
much faster than in several European
countries I don't mention which one
yes but the integration is going fast
yes and people that they like to be part
of a big group or a big public operation
and having the possibility to to have
these different experiences also in
other states in other continents
yeah and for us it's a new thing you
know moving outside of Brazil so it is a
challenge for us with what we've done is
we've set up PL regions and USA is one
of the regions on it has a P
previously it was all functional so
functional back to Brazil everything
went back that way it is a project
inside of our company to try to
through this I think if you look at the
way people are today a lot of times I
think you know people tend to be sort of
tribal you know are we the brazilian
guys or we the US guys and that can that
can be very disruptive to to trying to
make a global organization work I think
it's important that you know for people
to understand that one day they'll be on
the US team the next day they'll be on
the global procurement team the next day
they'll be on the global manufacturing
team they have to have a really a lot of
flexibility and that's hard for I think
sometimes for people to to catch and so
we have a major program in our company
to to work on that the second question
on imports is it our exports I should
say is an interesting one we haven't
really addressed the export in our
design what we did do though was we if
you think of these shared economy today
and how people work together with assets
and so forth we've reserved about 20% of
our capacity for co-production and we've
signed deals with some of the producers
in the US who needed to expand to
utilize part of our capacity as well so
I think I think there's other options to
export there's a lot of things that can
be done even inside the US and although
as I mentioned the ethane which is a key
feedstock for us is the cheapest in the
US and so I would imagine that we will
get to more export in the future thank
you very much we have 2 minutes and 19
seconds left
in that two minutes of 19 seconds is
there anything advantageous
disadvantageous or is a neutral being in
the US and able to participate in the
u.s. capital markets financially does
that help or is that just largely a it's
certainly not there's not a hindrance I
mean you know whether there's an
advantage or not we're a global company
you know we have capital access to the
capital markets in most of the major
economies of the world and of course a
lot of the capital that we do get will
come out of those areas where we do
business so you know definitely no
problems for us but also being a global
company with you know
such large operations in different areas
it does there's a lot of them there's a
lot of veil ability out there no in our
case I mean our company's not known in
us the capital needed is quite
significant so the capital is coming
it's coming from Europe for us it's a
combination and we definitely take
advantage of the lower interest rates
here in the US for one thing the other
is the private equity markets in the
u.s. are are you know significant so
there's a lot of possibilities there
both from the standpoint of acquisition
and even a lot of approaches with
regards to you know working together so
I think that there is a lot of potential
here from the standpoint of availability
of capital right well thank you very
much I think this has been tremendously
illuminating very different perspectives
on the one hand on the other hand we do
see those common themes coming through
that are important this has been very
helpful we appreciate your candor we
appreciate your participation today
please join me in thanking our panel
today for this paper
[Applause]
hi I'm bunch.i from Turin polka band
group jaren polka fan group is Thailand
largest private company in one of the
largest conglomerate with fifty five
billion US dollar revenue our core
business range from Accra food value
chain retail distribution and
telecommunication I had a chance to join
select USA Investment Summit and I got
such a great impression very very good
impression because it's very investor
friendly event with a single point of
contact to federal agency and this is
also a great summit where I can meet
both a government and business leader we
in race one point 1 billion u.s. dollar
in the end of 2016 and we believe more
to come and had to say thank you select
USA ladies and gentlemen please welcome
back to the stage the Honorable Wilbur
Ross secretary of the United States
Department of Commerce
it's me again I hope you enjoyed the
last panel discussion with the leaders
of such iconic global companies now it's
my great pleasure to introduce our next
speaker Treasury secretary Stephen T
minuchin I don't want to take too long
to give mr. secretary minuchin maximum
time for his remarks but let me say that
since President Trump signed the
historic tax reform legislation last
summer which was importantly engineered
by secretary minuchin our economy has
soared because of the 40% reduction in
marginal tax rates for businesses and
international tax improvements our
economy is on a strong upward trajectory
for the first time in a decade
investment is increasing and jobs are
more plentiful than they have been for
many years Trump administration has made
historic progress in eliminating
regulations and spurring investment
according to a recent Wall Street
Journal article the pace of cutting
regulations is increasing from four to
one in seventeen to six to one so far in
2018 throughout this period of historic
growth secretary minuchin has been a
steady hand at the helm of Treasury
helping to lay the foundation for
economic prosperity and promoting the
president's jobs agenda secretary
minuchin is the leading force in setting
the nation's monetary policy and playing
a big role in trade as well his career
in finance and management along with his
educational achievements they can
perfectly suited
for his role in public service upon
graduating from Yale secretary minuchin
began his business career at Goldman
Sachs Steven later founded several hedge
funds and served as chairman and CEO for
one West Bank crop which he sold in 2015
to CIT group
more recently Steven served as finance
chair of the Trump campaign it's my
privilege to work alongside him in
fostering investment and economic
opportunity here at home and abroad I
think that when the history of the Trump
administration is finally written the
world will recognize that Steven
minuchin ranks up there with Alexander
Hamilton with Mellon than with the other
icons of American Treasury historically
so it's my honor to introduce the 77th
Secretary of the Department of Treasury
the person whose signature is on the
very currency that you have in your
pockets and he's also my friend Steven T
minuchin let's give him a big welcome
[Applause]
thank you for the invitation to speak
this morning and congratulations to
secretary Ross on putting together
another very successful select USA
summit I am pleased to join you today as
we celebrate the six-month anniversary
of the passage of the tax cuts and Jobs
Act which the president really wanted to
name the tax cuts cuts cuts act and the
most comprehensive tax reform
legislation in 30 years
the bill cuts taxes for American
families and made our business tax
system more competitive companies of all
sizes are now investing hundreds of
billions of dollars in US operations
we're also seeing millions of employees
across the country receive bonuses
bigger paychecks generous budgets
benefits and new jobs well the law is
already having positive effects we are
also busy implementing it at Treasury
our Office of Tax Policy and the IRS are
working closely together to provide
taxpayers with necessary guidance to
plan for the future and accurately
assess their tax liability the IRS has
published two dozen pieces of guidance
already and they are hard working to
release more over the summer the Trump
economic agenda which includes tax
reform as well as regulatory reform has
created the most positive economic
environment in generations the National
Federation of Independent businesses
known as the NFIB is seeing record
levels of optimism among small and
independent business owners across
sectors of our economy the National
Association of Manufacturers is
reporting the highest level of
confidence ever recorded the fastest
wage growth in over 17 years an expected
employment growth in capital spending at
all-time highs the UBS reported that 66%
of
businesses are optimistic about their
long-term prospects the consumer
confident in senex recently reached its
highest level in 17 years importantly
the University of Michigan is reporting
the confidence among households in lower
third income tier has Riven risen eleven
point four percent since February this
reflects the fact that we are
experiencing historically low
unemployment with 3 million jobs added
including 300,000 manufacturing jobs
since the president took office these
numbers demonstrate that the president's
policies are working and we are on the
path to strong economic growth that he
promised the American people there has
never been a better time to invest and
grow in your business in America in the
tax cuts and Jobs Act we cut the top
corporate rate from thirty five percent
to twenty percent that means that
America one from one of the highest
corporate tax rates in the
industrialized world to below the
average we also cut taxes for small
business and pass-throughs and the law
permits businesses to deduct 20% of
their qualified business income the
United States is moving from a worldwide
system of Taxation towards a territorial
system and companies can now immediately
expense capital expenditure for five
years
these are meaningful reforms that will
put American companies on a level
playing field with competitors globally
and help them to invest and grow their
operations here in our country we have
also focused on improving the financial
regulatory environment over the last
year we issued a number of reports
outlining our findings recommendations
for making financial regulatory
conditions more predictable fair and
efficient we worked with our
congressional and regulatory partners on
a series of recommendations several of
which became part of the recent
dodd-frank reform legislation we're
delighted that the President signed the
economic growth' regulatory relief and
Consumer Protection Act into law on May
2
twenty-fourth the laws a significant
victory because it was done on a
bipartisan basis it shows that
Republicans and Democrats can come
together to pass legislation that will
make a difference for everyday Americans
and lead to a fundamental stronger
economy this law will enhance the flow
of credit and support job creation and
wage growth it is especially helpful for
smaller and mid-market financial
institutions that are important
mechanism for small business of note the
act to raise the statutory threshold for
enhanced Prudential standards from fifty
billion to two hundred and fifty billion
with some discretion for the Fed to
apply it to mid-sized banks among other
measures it also raised the Supervisory
and company run stress test thresholds
the law strikes the right balance of
maintaining protections for consumers
and taxpayers while providing regulatory
relief where appropriate as we discuss
foreign investment in the United States
I also have to mention the Committee on
foreign investment in the United States
known as sophia's and the reforms we are
working on relating to the sophia's
review process we have an open
investment environment in the United
States and we intend to keep it that way
we must also protect our national
security that's why we are pleased to
support legislation that will modernize
this epheus review process legislation
now pending in Congress could expand
Sophia's jurisdiction to cover those
transactions of most concern that are
not currently covered including certain
real estate and non passive investments
the legislation however is still
tailored to maintain our open investment
environment we are committed to
expeditiously reviewing transactions and
we welcome the ability to do so in a way
that reflects the rapidly evolving
dynamics of our global economy our tax
and regulatory reform efforts are
opening up our already welcomed
investment environment these measures
complement our trade efforts which aim
to break down decade old barriers to
markets
the world we are committed to working
with our trading partners to modernize
NAFTA break down tariffs and other
restraints and to build stronger
partnerships with other nations over the
past year and a half the president's
policies have led to unprecedented
optimism across the economy consumer
confidence and business confidence are
reaching new heights companies of all
sizes are investing more in their US
operations all of this progress is in
large part thank to the president's
leadership on tax reform and regulatory
reform we are proud of the progress we
have made so far and I assure you our
work to create a more prosperous and
secure future will continue we invite
you to join us in this economic renewal
to seize the opportunity to invest in
America and to grow your business in
America thank you very much and I hope
you enjoy the rest of the conference
[Applause]
ladies and gentlemen please welcome to
the stage the Honorable John W
Hickenlooper governor of Colorado good
morning first I want to do the
obligatory gubernatorial brag the
boasting that we all have a
responsibility to do for our state's
make sure you understand that Colorado
is a low tax environment a high level of
innovation transparency we building our
economy from the bottom up and the
middle out but we also have world
world-class recreation outdoor
recreation not just ski resorts but
hiking and mountain biking we are a
clean energy leader one of the true
innovators around food technology not to
mention cyber security aerospace
advanced manufacturing all kinds of new
technology we also have almost 40% of
our state is public lands which includes
39,000 miles that's almost 70,000
kilometers of trails of one sort or
another what I say is you couple that
with the 300 days of sunshine and it is
close to a paradise to live in and work
and therefore we like to think that we
have not just the number one economy
which is what u.s. News &amp; World Report
just ranked it ranked us in for the
second year in a row but we also like to
think that we have one of the top
workforces as well so that's the
bragging you know the Space Command
Northern Command are both based in
Colorado and that has driven a lot of
the technology in the aerospace but that
quality of life has also been a big part
of it I want to just take a moment to
talk about foreign investment and trade
because they are so closely connected
and state unequivocally
the Colorado is a huge believer in
foreign investment and a huge believer
in our companies and our entrepreneurs
being able to invest in foreign
countries we realize it's a two-way
street I spent 16 years in the
restaurant business before I got into
politics I never before I ran for mayor
of Denver I'd never run for student
council or a class president which is a
American democracy is pretty unusual
when I first opened my restaurant my
first restaurant in downtown Denver in
an abandoned warehouse district the rent
was $1 per square foot per year so
basically about $9 per square meter and
we opened and I put signs up in the
vestibule advertising our competition
there were at that time only six
restaurants in that part of downtown and
my staff came up to me I was a former
geologist from the oil and gas business
who had been when the price of oil
collapsed in the 1980s I'd been laid off
along with almost everyone else and I
gave the staff to my restaurant staff
came up and said you're you've never
been in the restaurant business you this
is dog-eat-dog
you can't advertise your competition
you're gonna get eaten alive and I said
well maybe those other restaurants whew
as they are are not our real competition
maybe our real competition is the TV set
and our job is to get people off the
couch out the door to enjoy life with
their family and friends if we do a good
enough job and our competition does a
good job we will create a rising tide
that benefits all these restaurants and
I look at that that lesson and just to
give you a frame of reference again the
rent was $1 per square foot when we
first opened now the rent down there is
closer to $50 per square foot there are
now 320 restaurants instead of seven
is become one of the most revitalized
downtown's in America I look at that
example as a as a paradigm for world
trade and foreign investment if we do a
good enough job and focus on the
positive aspects of what we can do what
are the missing parts of investment in
your countries what are the different
opportunities for investment in Colorado
we really can create a rising tide that
raises you know all the ships a big part
of this is making sure that we are
training our workforce with the skills
they need to be able to function
successfully in Cup foreign owned
companies you know we governor's love to
steal ideas from each other I refer to
it as enlightened larceny and in that
same way as we take an idea from another
state and you're gonna hear later from
governor gary Herbert of Utah who I
think is a master at taking good ideas
and then making them better but then of
course once he takes one of my ideas
I'll wait two years he improves it and
I'll steal it back and in that sense we
look at our major trading partners and
investment partners so for Colorado
obviously Canada and Mexico but China
Switzerland in Germany Korea and we look
at all the lessons that we have learned
to continue to learn from those
countries and we are transforming our
workforce now from being the traditional
approach to you know standard American
education until a young person is 18
years old then they either go to the
University or go off and find employment
we're using a compilation of best
practices loosely based on the
apprenticeship model of Switzerland and
Sweden but also borrowing from from how
they do trainings in in Japan and other
parts of Asia to really begin to create
a skills-based
workforce where once college to read
obviously I'm not a university degree is
still going to be paramount for the best
jobs but we recognize that our entire
workforce has to be able to really
acquire the skills throughout their life
and and and get competencies that will
allow them to be trained and then
retrained as technology whether you're
talking about artificial intelligence or
automation but as technology continues
to alter the landscape of our businesses
and our investments so that's my real
pitch here is that we all need to be
taking those best practices from each
other in terms of preparing our
workforce for the disruption and
challenges it's going to happen and it's
hard to do that if we're not trading and
investing in each other's countries and
each other's companies so if you take
one thing away well I'll ask you to take
two things away one is Colorado is the
best state to invest in and then the
second thing is that overall we have the
opportunity in real time to dramatically
change the the level of security in the
world Tom Friedman famously pointed out
that there's no history of any country
where that each have McDonald's of ever
attacking each other and I think that's
you know who knows how long that will
last but the bottom line is if we focus
on what things we can do working
together and share our best practices we
can be part of making the not only the
country the world safer but also making
sure that our quality of life in all
parts of the world continues to increase
thank you very much
[Applause]
ladies and gentlemen please welcome to
the stage the Honorable Pete Ricketts
governor of Nebraska well good morning
everybody
how are we all doing today good good
good good it is an honor and a privilege
for me to be here today to address this
group and I want to thank secretary Ross
and the Department of Commerce for
organizing this and the reason I am here
today is to invite you to invest and
trade with Nebraska investment and trade
is how we are growing our state that's a
cornerstone for our overall strategy and
Nebraska has got the business climate to
make that possible if you look at
companies in our state right now that
have a headquarters outside the United
States
they employ about 59 thousand people in
Nebraska and over the course the last 10
years have invested 7.2 billion dollars
in our state and why are they doing that
well they're doing that because we've
got a great business climate in Nebraska
we have had companies like Kawasaki have
an over 40 year relationship in our
state they have invested and created
2,000 jobs with their manufacturing
facility and just recently last year
announced an additional investment crane
their first ever aerospace division in
the United States right in Lincoln
Nebraska Nebraska is home to four
fortune 500 companies
Union Pacific Berkshire Hathaway Peter
Kiewit and Mutual of Omaha we are
creating the silicon Prairie in our
state with investments like Facebook
creating their first or their ninth
rather worldwide data center in Nebraska
and we actually have a data center hub
there with other companies like fidelity
and travelers from Yahoo we also have
homegrown technology companies like
huddle which is a leader in the sports
information industry
sports software and why do all these
companies come and invest because they
know they can be successful in our state
we Nebraska has won the Governor's Cup
site selection magazine for two years in
a row now for the most economic
development projects per capita of any
state in the country in fact for the
last two years in a row we have had more
economic development projects than North
Dakota South Dakota and Kansas combined
because companies recognize we're a
great place to do business
Forbes ranks as the fourth best state
overall from business were the sixth
most fiscally stable state according to
the George Mason's Mercatus Center and
US News and World Report earlier this
year ranked as the seventh best state
overall
now I didn't check to see where that
ranked that's against Colorado and
governor Hickenlooper but certainly
there's a friendly competition between
all the states to be able to get your
investment dollars we want your business
and that's why I'm here today to ask for
your business come to Nebraska and
invest now how are we creating this
environment well I think about it in
three broad categories that we focus on
first is developing our people and
that's something that's very important
because as you know that's the key to
make any company successful the second
is making sure we're running state
government like a business so that we're
easy to do business with and third is
really focusing on that business climate
so companies can be successful so I'm
going to hit each of those real briefly
for you now when it comes to developing
our people I can tell you that you are
not gonna find anybody better to hire
than a Nebraska how do I know that well
I was the former chief operating officer
of what is now TD Ameritrade the online
brokerage firm a fortune 1000 company
that s-- headquartered in Nebraska and I
can tell you when you hire a Nebraska
and you get someone who's well educated
who's got a great work ethic who's
customer oriented who's loyal and will
help your company succeed in fact
Nebraska has one of the highest
labor force participation rates in the
country Nebraskans want to work and so
we needed to harness that and develop it
so for example at the state we've got a
grant program that encourages private
sector companies to work with our school
systems to create programs in seventh
and eighth grade early on to get kids
interested in science and technology
computer programming logistics
manufacturing construction automotives
all the skilled labor forces and what
we're seeing in our high schools is that
they're developing those career
academies to continue that education so
that those kids will then know what they
want to pursue when they get to the
workforce another challenge in our state
is is across the country is low
unemployment so we've changed our
unemployment system into a reemployment
system requiring everybody to create
that resume get pointers from a job
coach training to take the next best job
and by doing that we have reduced the
amount of time people are spending
unemployed we've reduced the amount of
benefits we've had to pay out and that's
allowed us to reduce our unemployment
insurance tax by over twenty five
percent last year saving Nebraska
businesses nearly 20 million dollars and
folks that's how government's supposed
to work win-win-win person gets a job
come on and get somebody to hire tax
payer save money that's how we're
developing our people second making
government run more like a business and
that means taking the same things that
you all do every day to be successful
apply them to how we run state
government for example all the folks in
my agencies have been through Lean Six
Sigma white belt training to teach them
why we do process improvement and why do
we treat people like customers that
manifests itself in for example getting
our permits out faster we were able to
get Yahoo their permit for their
emergency engines when they expand their
data center in just two days we've cut
the time it takes to do an air
construction permit down from a hundred
eighty eight days to just 88 days that
allows companies that get to work faster
and to create jobs faster and then third
just the natural benefits we have and
the way we're approaching our government
is a
to create that cost competitive
environment Nebraska is centrally
located you can reach 90% of the US
population by two days by truck we've
got the fourth best infrastructure in
the country according the reason
foundation we've got the 13th lowest
cost of living according to US News and
World Report we've got the fourth most
of most affordable housing so you will
be able to find an environment where
your people can be successful and where
your company B can be successful and
that is how you can grow your business
and so we are seeking that outside
investment to come to our state to be
able to find a fertile environment for
companies to be able to grow that's how
we've won the Governor's Cup for the
last two years in a row that's why
companies like Kawasaki have come here
we've had additional companies like Agri
Plastics from Canada - their first u.s.
expansion in Nebraska Novozymes a Danish
company recently invested in their
facility in Nebraska creating a campus
with companies like Evonik a German
company and Vera Morris which just had
the roof raising on their new 200
million dollar facility all in that same
campus all those companies in that hub
of Biosciences they understand that they
are going to be successful in Nebraska
and that's why we invite you to come to
our great state to see what we have to
offer and in fact we're gonna be hosting
the 50th anniversary of the u.s. Midwest
Japan Association here later in
September September 9th through 11th
looking again to host those companies
who want to see what we've got to offer
in Nebraska so thank you all again for
being here today at this conference
thank you for the opportunity to be able
to make the quick sales pitch on why
Nebraska we've got a great state we've
got a great environment
we're running state government like a
business but best of all we've got the
best people in the world for you to be
able to hire thank you again for your
time please take the opportunity to get
to know us I know that you'll be able to
be successful in our state thank you
very much
[Applause]
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[Music]
ladies and gentlemen please welcome back
to the stage the Honorable Wilbur Ross
secretary of the United States
Department of Commerce to moderate a
discussion on investment success you're
gonna have to get used to me popping
back and forth day after day while
you're here so I hope I don't wear out
my welcome
but this morning I'm pleased to
introduce Governor Scott Walker and dr.
Lewis woo who join us today to discuss
investment strategies in today's economy
Scott Walker has been governor of
Wisconsin since 2011 and he plans on
seeking and we plan on him winning a
third term this November we wish him
well
Governor Walker has been a champion for
Wisconsin industry and has helped his
state embraced the next generation of
advanced manufacturing dr. woo is
special assistant to Foxconn founder and
CEO Terry go his company is making the
largest foreign direct investment in the
history of the United States namely
penny come on we can do more applause
than that
[Applause]
the plant will be in Mount Pleasant
Wisconsin the investment is expected to
create 13,000 permanent jobs in 10,000
temporary construction jobs it'll be
among the largest manufacturing plants
in the entire US the additional
investment in jobs will come through
Foxconn supply chain partners and are
expected to open in the region
Foxconn founded in 1974 is one of the
all-time great success stories in
international business it's based in
Taipei Taiwan
then manufactures the majority of Apple
iPhones in its factories in China the
company is one of the world's largest
contract manufacturers in 2016
Foxconn had an amazing hundred and
thirty two billion dollars of revenues
and employed 1.3 million people we have
a unique opportunity to hear from
Governor Walker on Wisconsin's success
in attracting Foxconn than from dr. Wu
on why the governor's overtures worked
so I'm going to try to prompt their
discussion but it's going to be an
informal roundtable between them and I
think there's an important symbolic
message to it some of you have
articulated to me concern that there's a
lot of uncertainty in trade
relationships around the world well here
is a major Taiwanese company happy to
commit huge some ten billion to the u.s.
they know things are gonna settle down
things will have a good ending and
they're going ahead
their investment so let's get on with
the discussion first question I have is
for dr. Wu how does a global firm as big
as Foxconn evaluate investment in the
u.s. versus elsewhere in the world well
first thank you for the introductions
and that's a billion dollar questions if
we look at US and China both of them are
the biggest economies of the world right
if we want to work with our customers to
satisfy their demands or to be in a
position to take advantage of the
consumer electronic markets there's no
other place to go
but China and US and so the question
should be why us now and not one u.s.
right I think now is that it has to be
because of present own right because of
the pro-business policies that have been
putting together that attracts are
coming over to Wisconsin
I remember that our Chairman terry has
mehleb will president for about several
times in the last 14 months and every
time i think president ron tried to
impress upon him there's only three
things he need jobs jobs and jobs right
so I think that sincerity and
determination to bring a better life to
the American it's very sincere and so I
think that certainly touched the hearts
of Terry and to move it forward a thing
is that the like take the office of
American innovation it has been
extremely effective and also try to make
it easier for us to immerse in America
ever since we met up in at the White
House we have this regular phone calls
on a weekly basis that just to check on
us see if there is everything is okay
and what other things they can do so
that kind of connection that kind of
reaching out to us making it a lot
easier to to advance in America and I'm
sure the second question you will say
why Wisconsin right that question is
simpler to answer it's simply because of
this man
right I think Governor Walker has shown
the fact that you know personís is not
as useful in the States
and he's shown the eagerness and also
the openness to universe together with
us and also he sees well Perry there is
a future of inversing in Wisconsin to be
up something which is not just a fan
don't just a factory but a
high-technology hope which one day will
rival that of Silicon Valley rifle the
financial sectors in New York and would
make the new generation of talents not
only one to stay in Wisconsin I want to
move to Wisconsin to work I think that's
the vision that both of them have well
Governor Walker you clearly made a
successful sale you have a real convert
and you pay me a lot of money what was
the magic seer about three billion
dollars right well by be ten billion
dollars of what kind of exactly it's
pretty good deal on my part
so just what did you do to spirit him
away from the other states that were
competing well first of all it's really
listening about a little over a year ago
and I remember the exact date April 28th
2017 we got up really early in the
morning and flew here to Washington met
with Louis and Terry chairman and a
number of other officials who had just
previously met with the president and
the president made a real impression on
them about the importance of investing
in the United States it was up to us to
make the case about where in the United
States to do that but we listened to
that first meeting we met
in the in the chief of staff's office to
the president in the White House and
there were three things that Jerry said
time talent and cost I've not forgot
them we've made that a centerpiece and I
think whether it's a the largest
investment economic development
investment in the history of the state
the largest foreign direct investment
even with the nice one he announced
earlier today this is still the largest
foreign direct investment in the history
of America and we're proud not just that
it's in the United States but that it's
in the great state of Wisconsin but for
us it was about really listening to what
people are interested in so we've never
forgot about that time talent and cost
the cost at the state and even at the
local level we provided incentives but
they matched their pay for performance
so they're tied into those 13,000
good-paying family-supporting jobs
they're tied into the capital investment
ten billion dollars but some people
asked me when this first was announced
at the White House almost exactly a year
ago in June of last year you know when
did we start working at it I said well
we met on April 28th earlier last year
but we really started working on it
seven years ago in our state we we we
changed our tax climate we've cut taxes
by some eight billion dollars if you're
a manufacturer for example if you're
interested in doing manufacturing in our
state we've all been wiped out the
taxable liability and production in our
state because manufacturing big and
small like is a big part of our state's
economy we passed right to work because
we knew well that alone wasn't the only
interaction we knew a lot of companies
that were looking at Wisconsin from
around the world won't even look unless
we had the ability to have that on the
table we we changed and pulled back and
prevailing wage we did regulatory
reforms we put in place lawsuit reform
we've invested hundreds of millions of
dollars into our workforce not just K
through 12 but in our apprenticeship
programs our Technical College programs
and others but probably the most
important thing I think back then when I
flew over and saw part of the sharp
operations which by the way look at
these panels and think they're good but
if you really want 8k technology you
need to get the new sharp LCD panels
that are going to be marinated Wisconsin
but when I looked at that technology I
said we really spent the time to
understand not just that we wanted their
business we wanted to know what do you
guys do what is your passion
and I can see it I can understand it for
example the panel's I tell you not only
they great for entertainment they're
great for healthcare they're great for
security there's so many different
applications we wanted to live that
because if they were gonna be in the
state of Wisconsin just like me like
Harley Davidson and we like Miller beer
we like Oshkosh corporation vehicles we
were gonna have a passion for what Fox
connects and we certainly do great dr.
Wu you're a great believer in
just-in-time manufacturing how will you
accomplish that with your new facility
in Wisconsin well we're certainly with
Bill if not bringing along our supply
chain so we're not going to do it alone
so a lot of people will look a little I
said what type of number of jobs that
we're going to create that we said we
can commit to 13,000 high-paying jobs
but there will be a supply chain of him
a multiplier effect of three to four
times of that we're coming along with us
in years to come so that would be a
complete surprising and complete
ecosystem that would come with us great
and secretary just one of the things too
you mentioned just-in-time I would add a
remarkable thing I think for anybody
here who's been involved in development
so we met April 28 last year we made the
announcement at the White House in June
we already started moving ground less
than one year after we first met this is
for a ten billion dollar project when
the president announced that he pointed
out being here in this in this region he
said it's big enough to put three
Pentagon's in it within the the amount
of space that's going to be under roof
so you're talking a thousand acres over
20 million square feet out there in our
state we compare that not to the
Pentagon we say it's big enough to put
more than a dozen Lambeau fields where
the Green Bay Packers play football but
it is enormous it is an ecosystem and
timing wise we were already ready to act
on it mean think about interacting with
government not just in the United States
but anywhere in the world less than a
year after the first meeting we are
already moving forward with actually
moving ground to clear the site to start
putting up the structures out there that
was part of the part of that first
meeting saying top talent and cost and
frost
we understood that timing was critically
important for a project like this to be
successful and so we've moved heaven and
earth to make that possible we continue
to have this great partnership between
Foxconn and their overall team both in
construction and in getting ready for
operations one question a lot of
American manufacturers are dealing with
now is the problem of finding workers
you need awful lot of very well-trained
workers I'd like to hear from both of
you how you're going to cooperate and
accomplish that objective sure well on
our case say you know this is a w it's
not for Walker it's not for Wisconsin
it's for workforce and so it's really
got three parts to it
one part is traditional education of
training and we've put more actual
dollars into K through 12 education than
ever before but we put a renewed
emphasis into preparing young people for
the career path they're gonna be
available so whether it's a
manufacturing electronics healthcare you
name it and we put new resources in for
early college credit for apprenticeships
for internships as well as in higher
education or technical colleges we've
doubled our youth apprenticeships we put
more in the University of Wisconsin
System we've dyed it even into it what's
called Wisconsin fast forward which is
customized worker training that's the
traditional route that's the primary
source of where the workforce for
Foxconn and others because we have 2.8
percent unemployment the lowest in the
history of Wisconsin one the lowest in
the nation so we're building a second is
breaking down barriers so beyond just
traditional ways of getting red people
ready we've transformed our welfare
system to put more people into the
workforce and higher expectations for
those who are able to work to be in the
workforce we changed and we're one of
the top states in America for helping
people with disabilities into the
workforce we changed our correctional
system to get people ready for
vocational and technical skills and then
the third part is completely new for us
and that is we're now recruiting and
marketing for talent not just for
employers not just from businesses we're
in Chicago we're in the Twin Cities were
throughout the Midwest and beyond
actually out recruiting Midwest
Millennials recruiting people who went
to Wisconsin colleges universities and
interesting enough we're recruiting
military personnel who are retiring
because Wisconsin's the number one state
in America
for veterans benefits and so we think
it's a pretty compelling argument for
someone who's been in the military
anywhere to come here in the state and
to the state of Wisconsin it fits in
actually very well because that's part
of the mindset that the foxconn has
developed with their recruitment efforts
as well well the way we look at it is
that in America we are never sort of
talents a lot of talents but currently I
think the young generation of talents
tend to be drawn to the West Coast or to
the East Coast right they are either
leaving home from the Midwest or not
being drawn to meet with so I think we
are looking at our task is to create a
platform an ecosystem right so that they
they would want to be coming back to the
Midwest because they are tremendous
opportunities for them to grow and Excel
because the high technology will be here
again right so it's not only just to
pristine the environment the beauty of
the state that will attract them but the
job opportunities I think that we will
do best absolutely and we call Secretary
Rice we call the area teary and I came
up with this name last year whisk on
valley because it's right between
Chicago and Milwaukee it's this great
corridor that's going to be advanced
technology advanced manufacturing
high-tech technology and we think that's
going to be a huge attraction and as
Lewis mentioned you know we're a state
filled with you know we're surrounded by
two Great Lakes the Mississippi River
some 15,000 inland lakes a few more than
our neighbors in Minnesota and we've got
a we've got a great place to draw people
to and now we've got the career path
that's really stated there at best in
the world
well how helpful has the Fox come deal
been to you and attracting other
businesses other types of businesses to
Wisconsin well and that's part of our
long-term goal is to really create this
focal point so Louis mentioned all the
different suppliers that supported that
but we've got a whole corridor there
ain't even before Fox got Harvey ball
which is now has its North American
headquarters is going our North American
operations it's gonna make gummy bears
if you've in fact I made a visit over to
Germany to to see their operations there
we're excited about that
but we think in that corridor between
Chicago Illinois and Milwaukee Wisconsin
you're gonna see this great
magnets be created where not just talent
wants to come in but other businesses
want to be a part of this whisking
Valley this larger ecosystem and you
mentioned the 13,000 direct jobs we
anticipate another 22,000 indirect and
induced jobs so 35,000 jobs in a place
like the state of Wisconsin even in the
Midwest that's like adding a good-sized
city and so is you can imagine part of
our focus now is not only helping
prepare the site and all the work that's
done with that we're actually looking at
building more housing creating more
opportunities for people who come from
even from outside of the state of
Wisconsin to work to be able to buy new
homes they have smart homes smart
communities a whole new facet there
that's been a good partnership with
Foxconn and particularly with our vast
country Ontario secretary Ross you don't
mind I like to add couple more points on
why now
especially given the escalated tension
between China and us the way we look at
it is the following as a global company
of course we would not like to see any
trade conflicts between our two largest
economies because certain is not good
for the global business company like
ourselves but we believe that you know
is at a time now to address it or one
day sooner or later we have to address
that issue right so I believe that the
dispute would be work out it just takes
a bit more time and also that we have a
lot of confidence in the leadership of
these two great nations I think that
they have built a certain trust in
friendships and certainly they are men
of wisdom I believe that they will work
things out and also number three point
that I like to add is the fact that no
matter how we look at it us is a driver
of global economic growth if US economy
is not growing the world economy is not
going it's not going anywhere
similarly to China so we would like to
see these two economies continue to grow
continue to be the driver global
economic
so the more we can do to have this to
country to grow peacefully
maybe check-and-balance and competitive
constructive competition I think they
are all good
so what I'm saying here is that we would
believe that I would appeal to the
international community here is that in
Mass in America right this is the right
time especially I understand that they
are 273 representative from mainland
China from Taiwan
then I will urge you to invest in US and
sell it to China the consumer in China
will love them right similarly you
cannot do you know manufacturing in US
railway and is to do research and
development at us and then manufacturing
in China and sell to China right that
will also help to trade deficit and also
we'll be able to take advantage of all
the talents available in u.s. well thank
you that's a very good worldview I think
everyone here can applaud you and Wilbur
and we'd we'd add an addendum just come
to Wisconsin it's easy Foxconn did it
we'll take care of you all we'd love to
have you but but he's exactly right you
the president's right president Trump
talks about trade imbalance best way to
deal that when we've been talking about
this for months
it's exactly what Louis said invest in
America we probably don't have to have
all of you but we'd love to have as many
of you that are interested investing in
in Wisconsin but obviously any of my
colleagues you've heard some some today
you'll hear from some more that's the
great way to deal with this issue it's
similar to what the president said two
weeks ago at the g7 that largely got
under-covered where he said you know
we're talking about tariffs why don't we
just talk about no tariffs if we had a
level playing field if we had a global
economy where we all our trading
partners all work together that's
probably the best case scenario and
certainly dealing with the trade
imbalance the more investments that we
have the foreign direct investments in
our States and across this nation the
better off we'll be
yes that's a very good summary of the
president's end objectives absolutely
we're not looking for trade wars we're
not looking for high tariffs we're
looking for a level playing field
and we think our country can be fully
competitive with anyone on a level
playing field basis problem is there's a
lot of history and free trade real free
trade is about as frequently occurring
as unicorns in the garden people talk
about them a lot but I've never really
seen one and the the may sound strange
to use tariffs as an intermediate tactic
to get people to negotiate but watch you
notice the German car companies have
been in the newspapers lately saying
well maybe we don't need a ten percent
tariff anymore versus the u.s. two and a
half six months ago you didn't hear
conversations like that when we put the
tariffs on steel and aluminum suddenly
Europe starting taking safeguard
measures Japan brought in a compliance
Department for trade enforcement it's
starting to catch on to people these are
global problems at the end of the day
they're going to be global solutions but
we need shock tactics in between because
there's been too much in there too many
people have been profiteering that other
people's expense largely ours so the end
result is exactly what you fellows have
described and I think that's an
important message for those of you from
abroad to carry back to your governments
and to your fellow businesses well in
secretary Ross you've got a great
connection with that because you've laid
out the overlaying policy that this
administration did but the same time
with select USA with this great summit
is you've not only talked about the
issues brought people together and I was
watching saw a couple of my my good
friends and colleagues actually good
example one from both party are both
good friends governor Hickenlooper from
Colorado the state I was born in and
governor Ricketts who was just up the
floor and from Nebraska select USA this
summit does a nice job of bringing
governor's in because as Lewis can
attest you you can have a national
policy but where the rubber hits the
road is at the state and the local level
and commerce has got a good sense of
dad's bringing governor's in local
officials that's where we make things
happen and obviously that's why we're
here today not only to talk about
singing the praises of Foxconn but to
tell you a bigger small life we'd love
to have you in our state and for all the
reasons secretary Ross just talked about
I think we're getting there yeah
Commerce is really a high-priced dating
service but unfortunately we don't
charge
I say global company I believe that
there's a lot more private sector can do
to help drive the balance of the trade
deficit between the two currents and so
so I think maybe you know we should have
the private sector to play a more
proactive role right instead of you know
just kind of taking along so that's one
of the reason why we're here is taking
that proactive well to the embassy to
the degree we can increase our exports
it not only helps us it stimulates the
global economy so we want more trade we
just wanted to be fair to be free and to
be reciprocal and events like this one
are going to go a long way toward
accomplishing that so I think there's
not just a good corporate purpose not
just a good jobs purpose for your state
I think there's a very important
geopolitical implication of this event
and the other events that we're trying
to provoke here at the Select USA summit
now Governor Walker other than climate
what do you feel is the inherent
advantage of Wisconsin well it's like
real estate location location location
right I mean part of the appeal not only
at Foxconn but two weekends ago I was
down in just outside of Woolworth
Wisconsin where key coleman which if
you've ever had soy-sauce Kikkoman which
is in and just outside of japan it just
outside of Tokyo I should say in Japan
Kikkoman can
45 years ago to a small little town in
south-central Wisconsin actually
ironically Woolworth Wisconsin is is
right about five minutes from where I
grew up in a small town on one side of
me was a guy Ben a name a Paul Ryan who
grew up in Janesville on the other side
of me was a guy I met in Wright's
previous who used to be the chief of
staff or the president I'd stay
people often ask us what was in the
water back in those days I said we're
from Wisconsin it wasn't the water it
was beer but Kikkoman came back in 1973
to that spot because of an abundance of
soybeans clean water the people which
they really liked the Midwestern work
ethic and location they want to be in
the middle of the country they want to
be easily accessible to different
locations and distribution routes they
want to be close to the Chicago mega
city if you will one of the mega cities
of the world but the location was just
right in Wisconsin and so in our case
you can see in this corridor I talked
about whisk on valley not only for
high-tech advanced manufacturing but
just in general there's a boom in that
particular category or that particular
corridor I should say because of its
proximity right in the middle of the
country we're easily accessible you can
get there not only by the road we go
through the Great Lakes which people
some people may know others may not that
we can actually get things out across
the ocean through the Great Lakes to the
Saint Lawrence Seaway we've got
tremendous air assets and not only in
terms of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior
we've also got the Mississippi which is
another route to the world as well and
so location is really good and as
anybody who's looked at at real estate
knows whether it's for your own home or
it's for your business location location
location not just for getting product to
and from market but also another part of
real estate is cost you can get all
those things you can be close to globe
to a global mega city you can be in the
middle of the country and the cost of
real estate the cost of land the cost of
doing business is a fraction of what it
is on either coast in the United States
it's a really good environment we've got
an abundant educated workforce we've got
some major assets like the University of
Wisconsin which does more than a billion
dollars a year in academic research and
development there's a lot of good things
going and that's why we're pleased that
great corporate citizens like
gun are not only building that
will be employing some of that great
talent in the state of Wisconsin
well dr. Wu - as we get toward the end
of this session like to ask you what are
the most exciting new products that your
company Foxconn is working on a lot of
people here know that you're a great
leader in finding the next new product
and doing a wonderful job making it one
of the new things you're really getting
excited about well we have only less
than two minutes left
you know I probably need at least half
an hour to tell you what we are working
on a bug everybody be really well but
but certainly you know in order to
achieve the mission that Governor Walker
and also Terry have to build a wisk on
Valley so one day would rival Dell of
Silicon Valley and also the financial
sector in New York I think we have to
build a platform an ecosystem so we
understand that in order to do that we
need more than just one company to
achieve it so that's why we're really
building an ecosystem we call as a a
capers 5z so we will be working with
Stan ups we're working with existing
companies to be vertical solutions on
this ak5c platform I mean one example
would be the clarity of the future aka
televisions or the display would be at
least four times that of the Nikolai's
can see so that would have a huge impact
for how care yep on healthcare and
medical solutions so that's the kind of
things we're looking at and also now
we're looking at ourselves it's not just
building a fab or building a
manufacturing site but we are enabler of
talents we are enabler of new
investments we are certainly enabler of
new technology and certainly we will be
the enabler of transforming the economic
structure of Wisconsin so only then we
can have a whole bang of companies
talents to join us to really to make the
risk on Valley a reality well we've just
ended
that very happy note precisely on
schedule and that shows you how
effective Foxconn is I didn't have to
interrupt her interfere they closed on
schedule I hope the rest of you feel you
have learned something from these two I
certainly have so I think we should give
them a big hand
[Applause]
Thank You Philip thank you
good to see you governor
ladies and gentlemen please welcome to
the stage the Honorable Gary Herbert
governor of Utah
well good morning I wanted to be here
with all of you and we thank all those
who have made this possible for us to
get together and talk about select USA
as a governor of Utah I can tell you
that the United States is a great place
to invest we have many states out there
that have much to offer for those of you
are looking for a place to invest and do
business a few years ago the Wall Street
Journal said about Utah they claimed the
brightest star on the flag was the state
of Utah and talked about some of the
economic successes that we've had in the
state of Utah and I can tell you our
stars continue to shine for the last
number of years in ways that most of us
probably couldn't have imagined
for example our GDP growth rate is about
4 percent we've created in the last 12
months more per capita private-sector
job growth creation than any state in
America today our unemployment rate is
down to 3% and particularly people are
jumping in and getting into the
marketplace the fact that our employment
rates been able to be retained at such a
low level as indication of our fast
growing economy in the state of Utah
moreover as our future is really what
the concern for I think all of us here
today is what's going to happen tomorrow
I appreciate the fact that art Laffer
who was Ronald Reagan's economic adviser
and predicting the outlook for any of
the states of Utah and America said the
Utah's outlook economically is the best
in America today that's the reason why I
think Forbes magazine is named Utah the
best place for business six out of the
last eight years so we're talking about
today really is about opportunities
opportunities for you to do business to
invest and I would ask you to consider
taking a look at the fastest growing
state in America today certainly in the
top two or three as a growth opportunity
for you to invest for example if you
were to consider and imagine a city that
has 20,000 plus developer acres within
minutes of an International Airport
close to a dynamic metropolitan city
close to interstate and rail and air you
say where would that be I'm here to tell
you that is in Utah and Utah alone in
Salt Lake City we have 20
thousand acres of developer land in what
we call the northwest quadrant which
we're investing 120 million dollars to
put infrastructure in to allow for
commercial development to take place
next to our Salt Lake International
Airport we already have Amazon's doing a
fulfillment center their UPS is
investing 250 million dollars in capital
investment about 1,500 jobs that's just
the beginning of this opportunity of
20,000 acres I mentioned the airport
Salt Lake City International Airport
were investing 3.3 billion dollars to
expand the Delta airline hub there and
the Salt Lake International Airport we
had direct flights to 90 cities around
the country and around the world a
significant opportunity for us in fact
in this area to create what we call an
inland port kind of a new concept you're
probably familiar some of the challenges
we face with coastal ports the delays
the backup the the time it takes to get
through customs there we're gonna
propose an inland port thereby the Salt
Lake City International Airport which
will in fact remove some of this
friction and the economy it will relieve
the inefficiencies the bottlenecks the
congestion that you see in other ports
it has the potential to be a world-class
hub where we do have rail air freight
trucking warehousing they're in this
middle of this northwest quadrant and
again this inland port will help us not
only become the crossroads of the west
which Utah's been named but the
crossroads of the world in addition we
have between our two major metropolitan
areas Salt Lake City and Salt Lake
County and in Provo and Utah County
within really about a 50 mile radius we
have about 2 million people and the hub
in the middle of that we call the point
of the mountain some of you may have
been there it's a destined to become an
economic powerhouse for our state and
particularly in our growing high-tech
industry which per capita lies again the
IT industry and Utah has been number one
in the nation so right in the hub of
this thing we're gonna have what's
called silicon slopes it started out
here again I high tech IT Center it's
like Silicon Valley and it brings a lot
of capital the state of Utah we say we
say it's like salt Silicon Valley in
California only in Utah has better
Skeen so if you like to ski come to Utah
we have now 6,500 startups and tech
companies in the state of Utah in this
silicon slopes area we have a summit we
started two years ago our first someone
had 10,000 people come around the
country around the world to participate
last year we had 15,000 this year we
plan to have about 20,000 so this
high-tech Center the silicon slopes is
growing dramatically the question I hear
all the time for most people is why Utah
why is Utah having success probably a
lot of reasons we have great people that
have a great work ethic a great culture
of values and principles we have also an
environment creating a very sensitive
area for people that want to invest the
risk-takers the wealth creators we have
an environment that's in fact business
friendly we encourage and empower the
private sector we have competitive tax
rates which are in the lower end of the
tax spectrum we've gone through
regulation reform so we have sensible
regulations that are not an overburden
on the business and enterprises out
there and the entrepreneur we want you
as a business to be profitable we want
you to increase your market share we
would suggest if you want profitability
and market share increases there's no
better place to do that in the state of
Utah our slogan that we have in the
state is we want to keep government off
your backs and out of your wallets give
me some power of the private sector is
allowed a lot of companies to come and
flourish in the state of Utah part of it
too is not only the business environment
that we have which is second to none
again
forbes has mentioned that six out of
eight years the best place in america
for business butts because we have a
wonderful labor force they're high
skilled they're young or meeting age and
Utah is only thirty years of age we are
very high tech savvy we have the highest
percentage of a home computer use in the
homes than any place in America today so
and we also are bilingual we speak in
Utah over a hundred thirty languages my
own family we speak Norwegian Spanish
Mandarin Chinese Norwegian Romanian in
fact when it comes to Chinese speaking
20% of all the Mandarin Chinese being
taught and learned in America is being
taught and learned in a state of Utah
this allows us in fact in fact engaged
in the international trade at a level of
other states would have a hard time
performing that because of our bilingual
nature by the way let me just tell you
in conclusion the Auto County Utah not
only for a great business environment
and an opportunity to invest and get a
return on your on your money but to come
and have some fun Utah's a great place
for outdoor recreation we have what we
call the greatest owners for those of
you like to ski it outdoor recreation in
the wintertime but whether it's spring
summer or fall we have beautiful
sceneries good places to visit
we have 14 ski resort areas we have five
national parks three different
recreation areas and 43 state parks 36
million acres of public land for you to
in fact enjoy and explore tourism is a
big industry in the state of Utah photo
our travel here last year named Utah the
must-see destination in the world the
entire state of Utah was named as the
destination place so for these reasons
and many others I could mention I would
like to suggest to you Utah the
brightest star on the flag a great place
for you to do business and we invite you
to come and take a look and give
consideration the state of Utah for
future opportunities thank you very much
the United States has always been a
premier destination for international
investment number one the u.s. is a very
very important market I think there's no
question that you have to be in the u.s.
eight international businesses should
invest in the United States because the
United States is the largest market on
the planet u.s. is very much a business
friendly as long as you make a good
product you will be accepted so my name
is Paulo Kunz I'm actually working for
BMW and my role is to see all of the
Americas
well BMW is a really established German
successful company and I'm proud to be
part of it
my name is Terry Gill and I'm the
secretary of the cabinet for economic
development for the state of Kentucky
my name is Vivek serene and I'm the
executive officer for the cabinet of
economic development and our mission is
to drive investment throughout the
entire state and create jobs
my name is Hiroyuki Takaya I'm president
of tactical our cooperation technical
cooperation studied the plastic
packaging business in 1949
I'm Nancy McLaren and president and CEO
of the organization for international
investment this summit is amazing you
have thousands of companies and economic
development officers focused on one
thing bringing your investment to the
United States the u.s. is the most
stable place to invest some capital in
the world today Spartanburg is the
biggest factory we have globally we
opened about 25 years ago and those 25
years ago until now we spent about nine
point 1 billion dollars in the area of
South Carolina and we benefit from it so
it could newly say it's a win-win
situation so we decide to have a plan in
u.s. and I participated select USA last
year and it was the best addition
made select USA has been a fantastic
addition at the federal level companies
it used to be concerned about entering
our market trying to navigate our sub
federal system don't have to be as
concerned I think about many years to
let you say helped us with a variety of
topics whether it's the workforce well
it's legal whether it's the locations
it's a variety of topics which we really
need to talk to someone who knows it has
the experience state and local
policymakers are ready to partner with
you they want to understand the skills
that are needed to ensure that your
business can grow and succeed in the
United States it's not also just about
convincing a company to come here but
have a great experience three five ten
years from now
secta USA doesn't make difference
between small company and B Company and
even we are small within two days I
could meet 11 states and discuss my plan
and I received about 150 site offer and
it was very difficult to choose one and
now is a wonderful time to consider
doing business in America if you're
serious about growing your business
worldwide you know you need to be in the
US market I think any company can
succeed in the US and I think that
starts with little opportunity one
person having a dream and I can only
encourage you to invest into USA they
honor to have their two groundbreaking
ceremony and I'd like to wish all the
best to everyone who make our dream come
true
this way the day that I will certainly
never forget
[Applause]
[Music]
ladies and gentlemen please welcome to
the stage MS Nancy McClaren chief
executive officer of the organization
for international investment to moderate
a discussion on tax and regulatory
reforms hi good morning I am Nancy
McClaren president CEO of the
organization for international
investment we are a Business Association
based in Washington DC comprised of more
than 200 international companies in the
United States companies including
switzerland-based Nestle korea-based
Samsung japan-based Toyota India based
Wipro and Germany based Siemens we're an
advocacy group we work with policymakers
at the federal and sub federal level to
ensure that US laws and regulations
provide an equal opportunity for
international companies to succeed in
the US market right alongside their
domestic counterparts in fact we are the
only organization exclusively focused on
these issues and promoting a strong
understanding of the value international
companies bring to the United States and
I am proud to sing the praises of our
member companies around the country to
ensure that Americans know that when an
international company sets up shop in
the United States they bring much more
than just capital when international
companies invest in the United States it
gives other countries a stake in our
economic success it puts them on the
same side of the economic ledger as the
US economy and it means their home
countries now have a stake in America's
success international companies help
diversify America's economy and it makes
it more resilient they also spur
economic productivity in the United
States and having worked on
international tax and regulatory issues
for nearly 30 years I'm really pleased
to to moderate this conversation today
and joined by a great group of folks to
have this conversation each represents
an important
of the US economy and all have their
pulse on the real-world effects that
recent reforms have made joining me
today are reg Shashi dree who is
president for us issuers at MasterCard
where she is responsible for managing
and expanding partnerships and business
with banks and credit unions across the
u.s. Raj holds a master's of business
administration from Stanford University
and a PhD in physics from Harvard Matt
Gibson is head of Investment Banking
client coverage at Goldman Sachs a
graduate of the US Naval Academy Matt
joined Goldman Sachs in 2001 and has
risen up the ranks to head up one of the
most important divisions within his
company and last but not least because
Siemens is a member of our organization
barber humped him she is chief executive
of Siemens USA while Barbara assumed
that role in the beginning of June she's
been part of the Siemens family for a
number of years and now heads a company
that has operated in the United States
since before Abraham Lincoln was
president so to start off I'd like to
ask each of you how you would how you
would talk about the US business
environment now for the international
companies that are in this room and
others that are thinking about investing
in the United States and maybe Barbara
we'll start with you Thank You Nancy
and thank you to select USA it is a true
privilege to be here today a hundred and
sixty years ago Siemens established a
what would then be considered a small
business made an investment here in the
US and that business has grown to about
twenty four billion in revenue annually
you know we look at this and we're at
operating in all 50 states and Puerto
Rico and this kind of growth was really
made possible through partnerships with
all levels of government we've been
working with economic development
offices in every one of these states and
what we've been building is at its core
and infrastructure business if you think
about the really critical infrastructure
that we deal with today from
transportation to power and utilities to
healthcare
these and the transformation of industry
that's going on right now represent real
needs for our society now how do we do
all of this we have 50,000 employees
across the u.s. we have 60 sites where
we do manufacturing digital projects or
research and development we've been
investing about a billion dollars a year
and we've become a net exporter globally
with about 5.5 billion in exports
elsewhere in the world it's not just
Siemens though it's our supply chain
we've got thirty six thousand companies
in our supply chain and many of them are
small businesses when we took a look a
couple years ago at the kind of impact
this business has on the US economy we
estimated about 800,000 jobs that are
driven by the Siemens corporation both
here and around the globe so as as
partners and and Thank You Nancy we've
been members in your organization as
partners we think it's absolutely
critical to be active in the regulatory
environment we've been thrilled to see
what's happened with tax reform we want
to see the tax reform regulatory
structure continue to be strengthened
and then we're really behind this the
concept of streamlining regulations and
things that I'm sure you're hearing a
lot about today because all of this is
really a structure that affects us
directly but also affects our customers
you look at our ecosystem our customers
are dealing with very complex
infrastructure infrastructure does it
take 20 to 30 years of planning in
advance whether we're talking power or
transportation or otherwise so the
frameworks that we're working on
together are absolutely essential and
we've got a very bullish view of what's
coming thank you great Thank You Barbara
Matt thanks it's great to be here for
those of you who don't know goldman
sachs we provide advice and raise
capital for companies and governments
around the world i work in
investment banking division where I I
cover a range of about thirty clients
across the world and lead an
organization leaf alliance we think the
u.s. right now is a is a really good
place to invest we have the most liquid
and well-functioning capital markets in
the world and very healthy environment
right now or at a time in the cycle
where small business confidence has the
second highest I think of all time
CEO confidence is incredibly high it's a
little lower than it was in q1 just
given some of this tariff back and forth
but it's still relatively high and
consumer confidence is also high and so
for folks looking to invest around the
world in a place where there's a rule of
law that's relatively well designed and
capital markets that are supportive of
investment and States and you can see
all the governors and other folks from
the individual states here that want
your investment we think that the u.s.
is a really great place on a relative
basis to do business right now
it's not perfect no place ever is but
when you think about the growth in this
country right now given how big we are
to grow it we're growing at some of that
driven by we find this environment right
now to be a very good one
great thanks Raj great thank you thank
you for having me here it's it's an
honor to be here so for those of you who
don't know MasterCard we're a global
company in the in the payment space or a
technology company and we essentially
help make complete transactions for
consumers for commercial clients for
small business clients help move money
payments across the globe for them and
so our focus is to get beyond the world
of cashing checks and to digitize
transactions because that always drives
economic growth and as a result of that
we also spend a lot of time focusing on
safety and security keeping a payment
safe on innovation and digital making
them digital so that they easier to use
and then also on data and analytics
because as you can imagine we don't have
any personal information but we see a
lot of transactional information
and I'm responsible for work in the US
markets I'm responsible for US banks
here and you know what I would say about
the US market now is we look at personal
consumption expense which is how healthy
consumers are how they spending based on
our data and the latest numbers show
that you're on your it's actually gone
up five five point five percent so the
US consumer is spending more they
healthier households are all healthier
and some of this is coming from things
like the tax reform you we always see
the more affluent segments spending is
pretty stable irrespective of you know
how their cash flows go up and down but
what the tax reform does do from what we
can see is the mass affluent of the mass
segments are spending more and
contributing to the economy and the
contributions are also actually if you
peel the onion coming from an
interesting source in terms of what they
spending on are we seeing things like
department store spending and retail
spending out of retail locations going
down more ecommerce and we're also
seeing more spending on experiences so
dining out travel on experiences over
things yeah it's a very healthy economy
good good to invest here excellent thank
you very much so let's talk a little bit
about tax reform let's dig into that
when the US Congress and the
administration signed into law the the
tax reform legislation our organization
came out in support of it we feel that
the tax reform has made the United
States more competitive for
international investment for your
companies to be investing here and and
it was long overdue I think that the
competitiveness for for some of the
global business had fallen because the
US tax system had gone so out of whack
with major trading partner so Barbara
how do you feel that the tax bill has
impacted us competitiveness oh and we
are right with you on this one first we
applaud the efforts of the
administration and the Congress in
getting the tax reform package passed in
2017 was truly a monumental F
and and what we see is that the the tax
reforms and the lower corporate tax rate
actually set the stage for greater
investment we ourselves are making
investments that are going to allow us
to expand our business and as I said
earlier so are our customers what we're
working on now and and some of this with
Nancy and her team is that question of
how do we ensure that the regulatory
framework from top to bottom in all of
our jurisdictions is aligned so that we
recognize the true benefit yeah
excellent Raj can you talk a little bit
about what what you're seeing companies
do or what MasterCard in particular is
doing with with the tax savings the the
tax reform has been terrific it has
allowed us to invest both in our
business as well as in the economy here
so we've done things like I'll give you
some examples for our own employees in
their defined contribution 401k plans
it's allowed us to take our matching
contribution from 6% to 10% and we
encourage all of them to maximize their
contribution and this match allows us to
encourage that even more and get them to
do more and think about retirement
earlier so that's one thing a second
thing that we've done is we've for a
very long time have had a center for
inclusive growth so we strongly believe
in doing well and in doing good and so
focusing and investing on sustainable
inclusive economic growth is very
important for us and one of the things
that the tax reform enabled us to do is
to create a new nonprofit fund within
the center we funding it at five hundred
million dollars over five years and
that'll enable us to do even more to
drive sustainable inclusive economic
development and in addition to that what
it also allows to do for our own
business is invest more in R&amp;D; in
innovation both organically as well as
in organically so it also helps us you
know we've bought several companies in
the recent past in the US most recently
brighty Rhian which is a machine
learning and AI company and so it helps
us sort of drive a lot of that
innovation organically and in
organically you mentioned an acquisition
so I'm actually gonna turn to Matt
and ask him how do you feel that that
tax reform has impacted deal-making as
impacted cross-border acquisitions yeah
I mean I think the the first thing I'd
say is it's early days so these these
deals tend to take a while that gestate
to come together and to get done and so
I think the proof will be in the pudding
down the road
but I would say in general it's made the
companies here in the u.s. more
attractive and more competitive as they
think about competing globally and so if
you're a company that's outside the US
looking to make a US acquisition there's
a few things that are going to your mind
right now
the first is that there seems to be in
the US a pro-business environment so
that's one big macro factor that gets a
little bit into tax but it also gets
into regulatory which I know we're gonna
talk about you know the second thing
that you're thinking about is you're
looking at the US is honestly some of
the tariff back and forth that's
happening in the press and you're
wondering is that just near-term
negotiation or is that going to have
long-term impacts and so and then you're
thinking third about regulatory approval
and I would say one of the things that's
happened in the economy over the last 20
years is technology and digital we've
moved from having technology and digital
companies to a place where every company
is technology and digital and so when
you think about companies that are
getting acquired having that
technological know-how and in some cases
you know intelligence is gonna be
scrutinized by the government more and
so if you're an acquire from outside the
u.s. looking at getting inside the US
you want to make sure that you can get
through Sofia sand the other hurdles and
and right now obviously the Senate's
passed one bill hasn't been passed in
the house so there's a little bit of
flux in terms of what the rules will be
but if you take a giant step back with
all that having been said the u.s. right
now is that is the biggest market that's
growing as fast as we are with the rule
of law and a pro-business environment
and so I think companies around the
world should want to do business here
and but those are the things that there
yeah so a couple of things that you
mentioned that I want to pick up on
you've talked about the terrace now
twice so why don't we go ahead and sort
of get into that just a little bit I
know from working in the space for many
decades that there is a very strong
linkage between competitiveness for
foreign direct investment and trade
agreements as rules of law trading
system and you know so many of our
companies are speaking with the
governors that are in town this week and
raising concerns about sort of
disruption with our trading partners I
think we all agree that sometimes you
know it is necessary to address other
countries policies that aren't following
the rule of law so just wondering if any
of you all and maybe I'll bump it over
to Barbara first can kind of talk about
this space and sort of how are you
viewing the environment that this is all
germinating in yeah well let me make a
couple of just I think very basic points
one we're a global company we believe in
open and fair trade with rules that can
be enforced I mean that's that's
fundamental to our ability to have a
vibrant economy worldwide and we know
that that will drive growth as the
global supply chain serves the party
serve one another we also believe in
trade agreements and and actually the
use of multilateral organizations in
order to help us work our way through
the discussions that arise around fair
and open trade I really I think this is
vital as we look at today's environment
I know that we do have a lot of noise in
the system but but I'm convinced that
we're going to get through this and that
what we're going to find is yes things
being dealt with slightly differently
but but fairness and a level playing
field
our and objective and that's going to
bring prosperity to all of us well said
well said anyone else on the panel want
to jump in on that one yeah I think I
think what business when businesses and
CEOs dislike the most in general is
uncertainty and in business there's
already a ton of uncertainty when you
make investments about what the returns
going to be and but when the rules are
potentially changing that makes people
pause and think about whether or not
they want to do X Y or Z I tend to think
that to Barbara's point longer term
we'll get to the right place I think
what's happening over the last three
months and maybe over the next three is
is obviously politics and negotiating
and the government's got a point or the
US government's got a point of view that
some of those those trade laws need to
be tweaked and while we're going through
that there'll be a period of turbulence
that's okay but I think at the end of
the day as long as companies like the
three they're represented up here know
what the rules are then we can make
decisions and and make economic and good
decisions and so I think what we're what
we're all kind of waiting for is to get
to that place right and I know certainly
our membership is very bullish on
investing the United States and and hope
we get to that right place
sooner rather than later so let's talk a
little bit about the the regulatory
environment another thing that you
mentioned was sophia's say this is the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States and it's an interagency
review body that reviews foreign
acquisitions of US companies for
national security purposes and as Matt
mentioned there is legislation to amend
that process and the Senate has passed
legislation to amend it our organization
supports that so I know that some of you
may be hearing and wondering about you
know and when you read in the press you
know views on the legislation that is
making its way through Congress now but
as an organization we obviously support
protecting our defense-related national
security we want to ensure that those
reviews are not politicized and you know
it needs to be changed based on it's
been ten years since it was revised then
that impact our national security and
technology is changing all the time so
we are supportive of changes that the
Senate has put forward and there's a
House bill as well that we hope to see
this passed into law this year but so
beyond that I'm gonna ask Raj for you to
talk a little bit about the current
regulatory environment in the US and how
you see it in sort of impacting our
competitiveness so we are we are a
technology company in the payment space
and so I'll talk about it in the context
of you know financial institutions and
banks who are partners and that's where
we focus primarily and what we've seen
the changes that we've seen in for
example the OCC or the CFPB to
streamline and simplify appropriately
you know in a prudent way some of the
regulatory burden is actually a good
thing for the companies here because
they can then invest more of their
resources people capital etc into growth
into innovation into acquisitions etc so
we we like the direction of that we're
seeing and you know commend that yeah
others yeah I'd love to share some a
couple of observations first of all I
don't know if people have heard about
the initiative within the administration
that for every new regulation the goal
is to remove two obsolete or overly
burdensome regulations what that means
to us you've been hearing us talk about
a transformation that's happening in
each of our businesses to digital and we
know that the pace of change is
accelerating we've got a regulatory
framework that simply can't evolve
quickly enough so this idea of removing
burdensome regulation makes a real
difference in in our business and let me
just tell you a couple of examples think
about the energy space the energy space
is changing rapidly
so the idea of the government
streamlining their regulations around
project permitting has made a big
difference for us the idea that there's
a leader a lead agency for every project
who can coordinate and make sure that we
hit the streamline project mile
stones those are game changers for us
and we're actually seeing that as the
grid transforms so think about something
as simple as energy storage energy
storage is the holy grail as the grid
transforms and we see more renewable
energy used and that renewable energy
can be intermittent in nature you need
storage to help shore up energy supply
well we all see the grand potential
ahead of us imagine the city of LA with
a new electric vehicle infrastructure
our analysis shows they're gonna require
a 1500 percent increase in electricity
just to serve the the transportation
sector who's gonna be able to fill that
void well we think energy storage is
going to be critical to that so the work
that the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission is doing in order to
streamline requirements and regulations
around storage helps to enable that kind
of transformation these are just a
couple of the examples that we have
don't even get me started on liquefied
natural gas where the commitment of the
administration to streamline and
facilitate expedite export facility
licenses can be important to our
customers we provide technology along
the whole the whole lifecycle from gas
supply to liquefaction transport and and
consumer use and and regulatory change
all along that chain is going to enable
real growth for our customers so those
are just a few examples yeah that's
great Matt I think the only thing I
would add is that when it comes to
regulation there's there's tone and then
there's content and both are equally
important and there's been times in the
history of the country where the tone
coming from Washington seems to be
seemed to be one that was negative or
onerous towards business and I would say
one of the things that this
administration has done well is to send
a signal that they are very open for
business and positive towards business
and business feels supported and so I
think that's part of why you see
CEO confidence and and the like so high
in terms of content I would say it's
industry specific if you had people from
all different industries up here they
might feel differently but I would say
in general the direction that things are
headed in fewer regulations sensible
regulations is something that we support
great
you know we had meetings yesterday with
governor's Bevin and Holcomb and the the
the attack on sort of unnecessary
regulation is not only happening at the
federal level it's happening at the
state level they talked about how
Kentucky and Indiana are really working
to streamline the process governor Bevin
was talking about how you know he wants
to get you in and out to sort of
evaluate the states and then move on but
then once you're there of course making
sure that you have this streamline to
kind of get up and going and as you're
working on sort of moving your business
forward in the United States can any of
you talked about you know some specific
states that you've worked with that have
helped you not only get your operations
running but have partnered with you to
ensure that you grow and succeed where
they've worked with you perhaps on
workforce training R&amp;D; partnerships
regulatory aftercare assistance any
Barbara I certainly can Raj do you have
something you want to have these go
ahead yeah let me share a story again on
this energy of thread because really
it's you know we think about we think
about the whole lifecycle of power we
also think about the lifecycle of
employees who grow up in this industry
and their head into a new future a
couple years ago we recognized the need
to strengthen our capabilities in around
energy we chose the Charlotte area for
our new energy hub and we're doing
generators and large turbines and and we
recognized we needed a workforce in fact
we we had real needs for jobs but knew
we needed a program to help prepare
people for those jobs the state of North
Carolina
and the local community worked with us
in fact we worked with the Central
Piedmont Community College and
established an apprenticeship program
and something you probably had in
Germany you imported it here I think
this is one of the Siemens most
important imports into the country is is
that focus on a new way of educating
folks that we haven't necessarily used
broadly in the US but here in North
Carolina we've done that and that
partnership at the state and local level
made that possible a 300 million dollar
investment by Siemens
the the collaborative work of the
community and I'll share with you that
when we opened up job requisitions where
we had a thousand jobs that needed to be
filled we had 10,000 applicants and we
now have apprentices who are going
through their education process paid for
by Siemens they are getting on-the-job
training and they're coming out and
graduating into entry-level positions
with Siemens paying around $55,000 a
year and no debt so yeah it's it really
is an important it takes the whole
community to make these things possible
I would echo that to takes a whole
community it takes private sector
partnerships as well as public/private
partnerships and around you know
specific problems in order to make a
difference and you know to move the
needle so I'll give you a few different
examples of different types of
partnerships with either local or state
governments as well as with other
private sector organizations coming
together so one of our focuses is around
they're about 50 million workers in the
u.s. there are gig economy workers now
and what that when you think about their
lives and look at their households they
have very a lot of uncertainty in how
their payments come in how the income
comes in there's a variability in the
sources of income but at the same time
there's a steadiness in terms of the
expenditures and for some of these folks
a $400 expense can you know unexpected
medical expense a car expense can set
them off you know it can really put them
into a different trajectory and so we've
worked with a number of government
agencies as well as private agencies to
figure out how we can help
think through what what would make life
better easier in terms of cash flow
management for a gig economy worker so
for example we worked with care.com to
help the caregivers that they serve
figure out how to use digital budgeting
in order to facilitate the payment flow
so they can match the income to the
expenditures so that would be one
example another example very different
is we work on Smarter Cities helping
cities become much more digital and
data-driven so as an example we worked
with the Chicago Transit to figure out
how they could price at off-peak hours
in order to balance the load and there
are I was just talking about gig economy
workers the people that might be willing
to pay less to go at an off peak time
and that actually helps the transit
system run a lot better in the city of
New York in a sure you've heard of city
bikes
when they first started putting city
bikes out there the local community
started objecting to having the nice
things around and we showed using our
data that when you actually put a city
bike stand in the local economy grows
the commercial development of the area
actually increases and since then it's
been embraced quite broadly so that's
one that we did you know with NYU
researchers as well as Gracie yeah
that's so many of these examples across
the country yeah Matt we have a we have
a program called 10,000 small businesses
and what we do is we go into individual
cities around the world primarily the
u.s. so far and we recruit and mentor
and train entrepreneurs that own
businesses with revenues I think it's
between a hundred thousand and three
million it's somewhere in there they
graduate it's on-the-job training its
business school training and what we
find when we do that frankly it doesn't
matter where you go you get engagement
from the local community because
everybody wants to grow the mayor in
that town wants their economy to be
better the people in that town want to
grow their businesses I think the
challenge or the rub sometimes comes
down to funding and so you have to you
have to find the right funding but we
don't really find it to be state
specific in fact most of our clients
operate across mole
people states but I would say the local
leadership and just about every place we
go is engaging with us when we want to
help great so we have just about four
more minutes left I want to turn to
looking toward the future right so we
sort of talked about what the current
environment is and so let's talk about
what you all think the u.s. climate for
international companies looks like for
the next two to three years right so
Matt why don't we we start with you
so we're two or three years we watch the
economy very closely we look for signs
of excess we look for pockets of grow
and the u.s. in particular we think that
in eighteen and nineteen as a firm it's
going to be a pretty good place to do
business
the impacts of tax reform are just
because it's only been several months
since we started the regulatory needle
is going to continue to move and so no
one can claim to look out ten years but
certainly for the next couple we think
that this is a country where foreign
companies should want to to be and
frankly as a country here yeah great
Barbara yeah I'm gonna echo what Matt
has said you know he's come in at
earlier that there's we've got all the
right conditions here we've got the
natural resources the rule of law I'll
add to that that we've got the most
skilled and educated workforce and we've
got an entrepreneurial spirit here that
really is driving a change I think that
if you come to the US you'll find an
innovation engine that is unrivaled by
others and and what we're looking for as
our as our Siemens corporation continues
to grow globally we're looking to invest
even more here and to use this engine in
order to drive global growth and I'll
invite you to come and join us yeah
that's great you mentioned the
entrepreneurial spirit I hear all the
time you know that from our member
companies and when I go talk to the
headquarters of our companies
try try again spirit of the US we're in
some markets if you fail you're a
failure but the United States you know
failure is just you know step in the
process Roger
now I'll echo what both of them said
which is we're optimistic over the next
two or three years we see when we look
at the spend data for both consumers and
commercial businesses in the US
it looks really healthy and it's growing
very nicely it's an economic environment
as you were saying that Foster's
investment and when we look at
innovation and we spend a lot of time in
innovation around you know biometrics
and around digital technologies machine
learning AI
the the pace of innovation and the
Entrepreneurship here is quite exciting
so yes very bullish yeah so we do a a
CFO survey every year we do it twice a
year and the confidence of our members
is the highest it's been in quite some
time so on behalf of the the more than
200 very significant foreign companies
in the United States they also are
bullish on the economy and you know we
talked about some of the disruptions
that are going on and and I think that
the you know hopefully these will be
blips and that will continue sort of
chugging forward so I just would like to
remind everybody and I know that you all
probably know it but it's my job to do
so is just remind that you know when
international companies make a very
deliberate decision to invest in the
United States employee US workers do
counterintuitive things like trained the
US workforce for tomorrow become a net
exporter do an enormous amount of R&amp;D;
here these companies are part of
America's success story we believe that
we know that the policymakers at a sub
federal level and here in Washington
really understand that getting your
companies engaged once you are in the
u.s. talking to your policymakers on the
issues that impact you even though
you're not a homegrown company is really
important and the impact that your
companies can make
here in the United States is enormous
and and I certainly know that working on
behalf of these companies for nearly 30
years it's been a pleasure so with that
join me in thanking the panel join me in
thanking secretary Ross for organizing
this incredible three-day event
specifically devoted to recruiting
foreign direct investments showing that
foreign direct investment is an economic
priority for this administration and I
think that's something we should all
acknowledge and appreciate so thank you
very much
[Applause]
ladies and gentlemen please welcome to
the stage the Honorable butch Otter
governor of Idaho woo hoo what a great
crowd thank you all for being here again
and again gosh sorry just a nice and
warm and inviting I wish I was running
for something maybe I will anyway it's
great to be back it's great to be here
with you again the first time that I
attended select USA I was the only
governor and now I see that we have 10 I
hope you have welcomed them as nice and
as appreciatively as you welcomed me but
I would tell you one of the reasons is
because of the great success of select
USA when I when I came I can't remember
how many booths there were in fact I
asked one of the staff backstage how
many booths did you have a few years ago
when I first came and and it wasn't very
many but now I see every state every
interest and every opportunity is now
attending and I think that that's
wonderful I think it's wonderful for
those folks who want to invest in the
United States and any state in the
United States obviously as well as for
the state itself capital as you have
interest in and so do we
is interested in two things primarily
number one is security you want to know
that somebody's not going to
aggressively take away the assets that
you invest in the natural resources you
invest in and people that you invest in
and the other thing that capital looks
for is predictability you have to tell
your stockholders you have to tell your
finance ears your insurance companies
your banks you have to tell them that
you're going to be able to pay back what
you borrow if you borrow so that you can
invest or you have to tell your family
that if you're going to invest that we
will make we will make profit on this
opportunity the reason I'm here from
Idaho and the reason I believe a lot of
the other governors are is as I said
when I was here a few years ago since
that time Idaho came out of the
recession leading the nation and today
we are the fastest growing economy were
the fastest growing in job growth the
fastest in rising wages and the top
performing economy in the United States
for our size and the reason for that is
because I believe that the out of the
contacts that we made in select USA the
reason I say your investment in Idaho is
secure it's because we don't change the
rules every time the opportunity comes
in fact when we were going through the
recession starting in 2008 we absolutely
refused to change the rules we
absolutely refused to raise taxes and as
a result of that capital was very
comfortable and so it was by 2010 that
we saw our economy starting to grow in
fact today our unemployment and our
economy has grown our unemployment is
lower than that in the United States and
faster in growth than that in the then
the United States and once again I
believe that is because capital feels
secure and it feels predictable so as
folks invest in Idaho and let me just
give you one example Chobani yogurt how
many in here have ever eaten Chobani
yogurt well you should if you haven't
you should because it's great and not
only that they have built the great that
largest yogurt plant in the United in
the world in Idaho and when Hamdi
Ulukaya the Turkish fella that owns
Chobani yogurt first
named Idaho he said they wanted to build
a 228 million dollar plant and I told
him I said if if you'll come to Idaho I
will make sure you give me your
construction schedule and I'll make sure
that you have every permit every
allowance every every requirement from
government two weeks before your
construction says you'll schedule says
you needed and we never missed a bet in
fact three months later he called me
back and he said butch I've changed my
mind on the 228 million dollars and I
said oh no you can't do that we've
already poured a lot of concrete and he
said no I'm going 425 million dollars
later on he called me back and he said
we're ready to open the plant and I got
a medal for you 1 million square feet
under roof all of the equipment inside
the largest yogurt plant in the world in
fact they tell me you can see it from
outer space and 326 days 326 days means
that we moved in Idaho at the speed of
business so if your capital is looking
for security if your capital is looking
for predictability and if your capital
needs workforce let me also say that
during my 11 and 1/2 years in office
we've created two community colleges in
the state of Idaho so that we can
retrofit so that we can bring our
workforce our talented people in skills
and degrees necessary for whatever your
business is going to require whatever
your investment is going to require so
if you're looking for a new place and an
exciting place and an inviting place to
do business you need to look at Idaho
because as I said not only do we move at
the speed of business but we're open for
business and let me just say in closing
once again my great thanks to select USA
the shear folks in this very room when I
first spoke to select USA we would have
been in a much smaller room but your
interest
and the continued efforts by select USA
has brought great people together to do
magical things all over the world all
over the United States and all over the
world now in my previous life before I
got into this business I worked for a
company that was worldwide in fact I
traveled to some 83 countries and in
every country I looked for two things
and I found it in many of them and that
was security and predictability and also
a willingness to help me make my
business successful not by any sort of
subsidy or not by any sort of waiving
important rules and regulations but by
simply understanding my business and
then working to make my business work
and so I say to you again we understand
the necessity of business being
successful and we and Idaho stand ready
to help whatever your needs are so come
to Idaho thank you very much for being
here today
appreciate it very much
[Applause]
[Music]
ladies and gentlemen please welcome to
the stage the Honorable Ian Steph acting
assistant secretary for global markets
and acting director general of the US
and foreign commercial service and the
United States Department of Commerce
good morning my name is Ian Steph and I
am pleased to be here this morning with
such a lovely robust crowd here welcome
to select USA it is my honor to stand
before you at the 2018 select USA summit
the top foreign direct investment in the
event in the United States it's such an
exciting time in our nation's history
the president vice president and
secretary Ross have made increasing
foreign direct investment into the
United States a top priority the
recently passed tax cuts and Jobs Act
historic regulatory reform and ambitious
infrastructure plan are just some of the
ways the Trump administration is
supporting foreign direct investment
Governor Eric Holcomb is a lifelong
Hoosier a veteran of the United States
Navy and the governor of Indiana since
taking office in January he began
implementing the state's next-level
agenda which emphasizes jobs economic
growth and infrastructure already he has
led the way for the largest long-term
infrastructure investment in Indiana's
history which will invest four point
seven billion dollars for roads and
bridges over the next five years he is
committed to boosting foreign direct
investment by bringing the world Indiana
and taking Indiana to the world today
one in five Hoosiers go to work in
manufacturing plants across the state
talk about a state that makes things the
governor's agenda is a model for many
other states to follow as they create a
globally competitive environment for
American businesses it's an honor to
stand on the
stage aside one of our nation's finest
leaders and the governor of my home
state of Indiana ladies and gentlemen
please welcome the 51st governor of
Indiana my friend Eric Holcomb well good
morning it's very good to be with you
and with my friends from the Indiana
Economic Development Corporation and our
state delegation it traveled here to
share a little bit about eight-minute
pitch for why Indiana or the success
story that Indiana is able to share all
over the world which in just alluded to
and I ran into my good friend butch as
he was exiting the stage and I was
preparing to enter and it just occurs to
me that obviously you've heard from
multiple governors already and we're all
going to talk about how our state is the
best and I would just ask you to believe
it when I say it because we don't have
to exaggerate quite honestly Indiana is
on a roll and experiencing some serious
positive momentum and we're doing that
because of what Ian just mentioned we're
doing that because of our attractive
economy and we're doing that because of
our infrastructure build out a little
bit more on that in just one second and
we're doing experience in that momentum
because of the way that we are skilling
up our workforce and taking our
businesses and and therefore our
communities and our state community by
community to the next level so if I
could just give you a quick Indiana
highlight reel and you'll see why this
state which sits literally in the middle
of of everything is just a perfect place
for your investment or your potential
investment we have a triple-a credit
rating the highest you can get we live
within our means we only pass honestly
balanced budgets have about 1.8 billion
in reserves that's about 11 plus percent
of our annual operating budget the Tax
Foundation has ranked our state as
having the best task
tax climate in the Midwest top eight in
the country our personal property taxes
are capped at 1% of the assessed value
our corporate taxes are coming down two
to four point nine percent by year 2021
steady decline up until 2021 are our
personal taxes income taxes are at 3.2
percent we have no inventory taxes no
inheritance taxes zero our regulatory
environment which also Ian alluded to
has reasonable and predictable there are
no surprises in the state of Indiana and
in Forbes has ranked our environment
from a regulatory perspective as number
one in the nation in fact just last year
US News and World Report also ranked the
state of Indiana in terms of our state
government service efficiency
transparency as number one we're very
proud that we have a zero percent
environmental backlog permit backlog and
so we're operating at the speed of
business or even faster in the state of
Indiana we're a right-to-work state we
have the second lowest workers comp
rates in the nation we have low debt as
a state our pensions are healthy and
funded have the second cost of living in
the country which just means your dollar
goes further in the state of Indiana
than it does some with some of the
competition that we go up against day in
and day out and by the way we have no
congestion so you have room to grow but
wait there's more
we have a fully funded infrastructure
road and bridge program that Ian alluded
to that we just put into place he
mentioned the four point seven billion
over the next five years that's really
about 11 billion when you consider the
maintenance and it's a twenty year
paid for not debt financed
infrastructure programs so it amounts to
about 32 billion all said and done over
the next 20 years we're very transparent
about that program so in the 92 counties
in the state of Indiana you can see
every single project on the map start
time stop time cost of those projects so
it allows you to be able to not predict
but to know where the state of Indiana
is going to be making our state
investments in our state Road and bridge
assets and how we will connect them with
our local partners which we just
increased their local budgets all 92
counties so that we can connect the
state assets with the local assets as
well and that has just helped us
leverage something we've been blessed
with since the very beginning and that's
our location location location we're the
number number one state ranked in terms
of highway accessibility in the country
so you can see why we're living up to
that motto of the crossroads of American
but that's not just a motto it's not a
bumper sticker that is our our mission
and we're putting our money where our
mouth is it's also when we talk about
infrastructure and Ian mentioned
connecting with the world I say I wake
up every day and try to take in the end
of the world bring the world back to
Indiana it's not just obviously roads
and bridges it's also our airports we
have an incredible regional network of
airports both domestic and the number
one ranked international airport in
North America going on at sixth straight
year in Indianapolis we're adding more
direct flights domestically and we just
celebrated our first ever in our state's
history
dating back to 1816 we just added our
first non-stop transatlantic flight from
Indianapolis to Paris so now we're in
the European market and we're looking
and working on adding additional
international direct flights as well
we're the second biggest FedEx hub in
the country and it is growing we have
three water ports yes we have water
ports we can get products
out the out the on the Great Lakes out
the st. Lawrence Seaway and we can also
get products we've got a port up and on
the Great Lakes like Michigan and then
we've got two ports currently looking at
building a fourth but we have two
currently on the Ohio River which can
get your Freight to the Gulf of Mexico
and then beyond so we have sought to in
our infrastructure program connect with
the world like never before and when you
couple our global connectivity which is
really the new and the new word which I
just learned from the Italian ambassador
yesterday was local is it as it's
connecting our local communities with
the global economy some amazing things
are happening in the state of Indiana
just last year in 2017 our Indiana
Economic Development Corporation
celebrated breaking the all-time record
for new job commitments come into the
state of Indiana and we raise the bar
and we said how do we take this to the
next level and and we are currently on
pace to break last year's record as well
so back to that whole theme of momentum
in fact we have more Hoosiers working
today in the private sector than we ever
have in the history of our state low
unemployment 3.2 percent lower than any
state that we touch and a higher
national labor participation rate than
the national average I should say the
rich state's poor state report from the
American Legislative Exchange Council
says that Indiana is ranked the third
highest in the nation for this year's
2018 for this year's economic outlook
and we are in fact living up to that per
capita our income growth for Hoosiers is
2.2 percent about five times higher than
a national growth rate I was going to
give you a quote was prepared to give
you a quote from the all-time best movie
ever made I'm not talking about Ben Hur
although that did involve a Hoosier Lew
Wallace
I was going to refer to Hoosiers the
movie Hoosiers but I just met with both
the ambassador to India and the
Ambassador to China Branstad and we got
we got to talking about famous movies
and of course he brought up Field of
Dreams and there's some truth in too
many lines in the movie Field of Dreams
obviously if you build it they will come
in the state of Indiana is proving just
that especially in sectors where we are
starting to become a leader in the
country for instance the tech community
Indianapolis --is our capital city its
tech sector is booming and as in the top
10 top 10 city for tech job growth and
fourth in the nation for Women in
Technology we're investing more on this
on this front we just launched a 250
million dollar next-level fund to invest
in small and and and mid-cap companies
fund the fund that are that are scaling
up a very attractive new tool in our
toolbox so our tech industry as I said
is booming and at the very same time
we're a target rich environment
considering that Indiana is the number
one manufacturing state per capita in
the nation and so we've been known as
the medical device capital of the world
and the RV capital of world 80% of the
RVs made that 80 percent of that market
are made in one state really in one
county in Indiana Elkhart Indiana so
we're very proud of that we're the
limestone capital if you're getting
around the nation's capital you're
looking at Indiana limestone we hope
build this place literally and we're of
course as we have been our original
calling card as the state of Indiana
were a powerhouse an Ag and so our AG
Biosciences has just come so far so fast
relatively speaking over the last 10 20
years we're home to at the very same
time six automobile on
motive Oh AMS with GM and Fiat and
Chrysler and Subaru and Toyota Honda we
just added SF Motors from China and so a
couple that with that deeply rooted
automotive supply chain and we continue
to lead on that front to what's very
exciting on connecting all of these
assets is the talent that we're bringing
to bear that that direct talent pipeline
into companies and it's it's got a lot
to do with our world-class universities
and it's hard to name one without naming
them all but you think about Indiana
University and Purdue University Notre
Dame and Hanover College where I went to
we have some private colleges and the
mayor of Crawfordsville Indiana is with
us wall bash College we have direct
pipelines that are all all understand
that workforce development is economic
development and certainly we get that
too and companies now know that they can
recruit their workforce or their talent
right there in their backyard so when
you add that network those colleges and
universities to the we have the single
largest single biggest Community College
System Ivy Tech in the country and and
thousands and thousands of Hoosiers are
getting directly connected with those
credentials and with the skill sets and
logistics and IT and construction those
vocational training programs that are
critically important to powering our
state forward and it has just teed up
our state to continue to break these
records because we have the skilled
workforce to meet the the unfilled jobs
that are there right now and and as soon
as artificial intelligence tells us what
the jobs I always say we're closer to
2050 than 1950 soon as artificial
intelligence tells us what the jobs are
going to be in 10 years we're already
preparing for that today so I'll just
close I want to keep us on schedule and
not be the
guy that got us all but all closed by
just saying that that Indiana is not
just certainly we measure everything you
can't manage it if you're not measuring
it but we're not just about the numbers
and we're not just about the stats we're
also of the why Indiana has got a lot to
do with the quality of life and that's a
big piece of the Indiana pie is that
quality of life but I alluded to but
didn't get too deep into it it's just a
great place obviously to raise a family
to grow and to to play and buy a house
enjoy the outdoor recreation that we
offer an experience at the very same
time this this global culture in the
next few years just in the next few
years Indiana will host the greatest
spectacle in racing the Indy 500 where
300,000 of our closest friends all come
together it's like hosting a Super Bowl
every year will host the men's and
women's NCAA Final Fours will host the
national college football championship
and oh by the way an NBA all-star game
we have the one of the best beaches in
the country you heard that right
Indiana has one of the best beaches in
the country along the south shore of
Lake Michigan known as the dunes we get
about three million annual visitors
every year that's ranking right up there
with Yellowstone and Yosemite to put
that in perspective throw in our state
parks and that network and we are home
to the what has been ranked the number
one historic resort in the country known
as French Lick Resort we've got biking
and hiking that ranks up in the top five
in the country saline and and caving we
literally have it all and that's why
Indiana is no longer America's best-kept
secret we are telling and selling the
Indiana success story around the world
and the world is is eager to help us
co-author what our next chapter will be
because I always say it's not bragging
if it's true
and besides we don't we don't believe in
Indiana and lonely victories so FDI is
such a key and critical part of
Indiana's not just future but our
formula of success and that certainty
that predictability and that that
stability that equals not just your
growth or your potential growth but it
equals our growth
it's Indiana's time which means it's our
time let's grow together thank you all
and have a great conference ladies and
gentlemen this concludes today's plenary
sessions please enjoy lunch networking
and matchmaking meetings in the exhibit
hall breakout panel sessions will begin
at 1:30 p.m. please check your summit
[Music]