By RFD Radio/WFMB
DECATUR – Chinese investment in a central Illinois town is paying off with more jobs at a glass factory.
Fuyao Glass cut the ribbon on $200 million in improvements to the former PPG Glass plant in Decatur. The Fuyao workforce is growing from 50 jobs to 300.
Decatur Mayor Julie Moore-Wolf said that this makes it clear downstate Illinois can be a center of global manufacturing.
“We tout ourselves as an international business community and I think this just goes to show we are ready to do business in all parts of the world,” Moore-Wolf said. “The economy is global and we want a lot of that global business to be right here.”
The plant manufacturers glass for the automobile industry. The Macon County plant can produce enough glass for about 4 million cars a year.
President of the Decatur and Macon County Economic Development Corporation Ryan McCrady said that the arrival of a foreign business in central Illinois showcases the global nature of trade.
“Fuyao has invested over $800 million in the United States,” McCrdy said. “That’s significant. That’s not moving jobs to China, that’s creating jobs in the United States.”
