State officials hope a new strategy will bring more foreign companies to Tennessee. At the same time, they hope to get more businesses in the state to sell their products abroad.
In the past, state officials have made trips overseas to convince international companies that Tennessee is a good place to do business. Governor Bill Haslam says the state will now have a year-round presence throughout the world by opening trade offices in Mexico, the UK, Germany and China.
We’re trying to see where they have manufacturing jobs overseas, where changing values of currency, where things that used to be manufactured in Asia, are now manufactured here.
Nissan is one example of this. The company recently moved production of the Leaf electric vehicle to its Smyrna plant, because of a rising Japanese yen. The state will also be making a bigger push for Tennessee firms to do business abroad. The Haslam Administration has set a goal of increasing the state’s exports 10 percent in three years.
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