By Seth McLaughlin
Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell yesterday said that the $90,000 price tag for his weeklong trade mission to Europe will generate a “terrific return for the taxpayers.”
Speaking from Germany on a conference call with reporters, McDonnell said he has met with various companies and business leaders in Europe that each have the potential to bring anywhere from 30 to 300 new jobs into the state and $30 million to $150 million in total capital investment.
The governor noted that his predecessors this decade had spent upwards of $200,000 on similar trade missions. The cost of his trip was covered under the $70 million in economic development incentives that state lawmakers included in the budget and that will also be used to open trade offices in England, China and India, he said.
“What I’ve found in looking some of these people in the eye, they were extremely grateful that the governor of Virginia would actually come and see them and ask for their business,” the Republican said. There will be “two, three, four or more announcements that we hope we are going to be able to make in the next 60 to 90 days as a result of this trip that will be very profitable — some in aerospace and some in other industries.”.
The trip is McDonnell’s first on behalf of the state. He has been joined in London by Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Todd Haymore and Virginia Tourism Corp. President and CEO Alisa Bailey; in London and the Netherlands by his wife Maureen; and throughout the eight-day trip by Secretary of Commerce and Trade Jim Cheng.
During the eight-day trip, McDonnell has met with businesses interested in investing in having a presence in the Commonwealth and others that already call Virginia home, including B.I. Chemicals, Siem investors, and Rolls Royce, the world's second-largest maker of aircraft engines.
McDonnell suggested that some of the future investors are suppliers of Rolls Royce who are interested in being close to the company’s new jet engine manufacturing plant in Prince George County.
"We believe now we can get major international suppliers of Rolls Royce to be able to come and locate in that 700-800 acre industrial park around the Rolls Royce project,'' he said. "I think that's going to be a magnet for aerospace business and several of our hottest prospects are in that area."
The University of Virginia plans to construct the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing near the Rolls-Royce plant. Plans call for a 50,000 square-foot research center on 20 acres of land donated by Rolls-Royce, part of the company's 1,035-acre Crosspointe Centre development near the intersection of U.S. 460 and Interstate 295.
Finally a rest from the Tea Party trumpeting on Virginia Statehouse! Now its time for the other barrel getting fired off for Bob Mcdonnell!! In a few days it’ll be time to give this one a rest and start back on the Tea Party barrel. Gee, by the time 4 years are up, maybe Bob McDonnell will have finally caught up with all the leaders in Virginia whose ideas he is taking credit for.