Douglas: Asia trip to yield new jobs
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By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau - Published: November 6, 2009
MONTPELIER – Gov. James Douglas said Thursday that his recent trip with Vermont business leaders to Asia is showing tangible results, with several potential investments in state companies on the way.
Douglas said the trip – to increase the number of so-called "EB-5" investors putting money into Vermont – worked as hoped. "It was a tremendous success," Douglas said.
Bill Stenger, co-owner of the Jay Peak resort, said a new venture with AnC Bio Inc., a South Korea medical technology firm, in the Newport area will be funded with money from EB-5 investors. Under that program, recently expanded and extended, foreign investors can get temporary visas if they invest $500,000 or more in a business that creates 10 or more jobs.
Such investors have already put money into Jay Peak and Sugarbush resorts. And the two-week Asia trip offered hope to companies like Seldon Technologies of Windsor. That company is in the process of changing from a research and development firm to a manufacturing company, said Alan Cummings, the head of the water purification technology firm.
"This was not an easy trip. All of us worked like hell for two weeks," Cummings said. But in the end "it provided us with access to capital that we simply would not have had."
Douglas said he expects between 35 and 40 EB-5 investors in state businesses as a result of the trip. That would mean 350 to 400 jobs as a result of those investments.
The AnC Bio VT project will result in roughly 200 jobs paying between $60,000 and $200,000 a year in Orleans County, Stenger said.
"The biggest challenge to all of us have is available capital," said Stenger. Some of the workers at what is expected to be a roughly $50 million facility will be Vermonters, but all will work and live in the state once the operation begins, Stenger said. "It is a tremendously capital-starved environment out there," said Joe Perrotto, head of Country Home Products, an Addison County equipment manufacturing company.
Although the deals are not complete his company will also gain some investors through the Asia trip, Perrotto said.
"I expect we will have little difficulty in filling the slots we have made available," he said.
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