Taiwnese Group Visits Indiana This Week

On Tuesday (5 October), a delegation from Taiwanese DDGS (dried distillers grains – a co-product of the ethanol industry) and grain buyers will be visiting the farm of David and Mary Howell of Middletown. In addition to the morning farm visit, the Indiana Corn Marketing Council (ICMC) is hosting a welcome reception for the group and local leaders in Muncie that evening.

The U.S. Grains Council (USGC) is sponsoring the Taiwanese delegation on a tour of Ohio and Indiana prior to the USGC-Export Exchange Conference in Chicago. David Howell serves as chairman of the Asia Advisory Team of U.S. Grains Council, as well as a farmer-director of the Indiana Corn Marketing Council. The group will also be touring the POET ethanol facility in Alexandria and Rydman & Fox, a farm fertilizer service and grain elevator in Anderson.

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Muncie Gets New Sister City

The formal signing of a memorandum between Muncie and Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China to become Sister Cities took place 22 April.

Zhejiang Province is Indiana's sister-state in China.

Zhuji City is located some 53 miles south of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, and some 118 miles southwest of Shanghai. The population of Zhuji City is 1.1 million people.

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Indiana Mayors Invited to Chicago by China Consul

The Consul General of the People’s Republic of China to Chicago, His Excellency Ping Huang (right), will host a group of Indiana Mayors for a first of its kind meeting and lunch at his Chicago consulate on 18 January (Monday), reports Inside INdiana Business.

Five Mayors from Indiana’s North Central Region have been invited to travel to Chicago to meet with the Chinese Consul General and his staff: Mayor Sharon McShurley of Muncie, Mayor Bruce Hosier of Portland, Mayor Wayne Seybold of Marion, Mayor Mike Fincher of Logansport, and Mayor Jason Thompson of Monticello.

This event is the result of the joint collaboration of the Confucius Institute at Purdue University, Purdue’s Center For International Business, Education and Research, and Larry Ingraham, an international consultant and member of the Purdue CIBER advisory committee, who is now representing The Sagamore Institute For Policy Research, based in Indianapolis.

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Muncie-Delaware County Delegation Back from Japan

Muncie Mayor Sharon McShurley; Terry Murphy, Vice President, Economic Development for the Muncie-Delaware County Economic Development Alliance (EDA), and Larry Ingraham, President of Ingraham and Associates and special Japan consultant to the City of Muncie and Delaware County Commissioners, recently returned from a highly successful week long business trip to Japan, according to the EDA.

“We had twelve appointments with business and company leaders during the week,” said Murphy. “Three of the companies have active projects and have already completed site visits to our community. We also met with other key business leaders in the areas of finance, government, private business, and construction."

This is the fourth consecutive year a Muncie-Delaware County Delegation has visited Japan.

Muncie Courts Japanese Business

Economic development leaders from Delaware County plan to meet with Japaneses businesses during next month's Midwest U.S. - Japan Association conference, reports Inside INdiana Business.

The Milwaukee event (7-9 September) is part of the area's Asian Initiative to attract more Asian investment. It follows a marketing trip to Japan earlier this year by Muncie and Delaware County officials.

The Midwest U.S. - Japan Association is comprised of ten member states including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Delaware County lands a touch of Spain

According to Inside INdiana Business, a Spanish company has announced it will establish its first presence in the U.S. in Delaware County.

Miasa Automotive LLC will invest more than $1.4 million to locate its new production facility northeast of the City of Muncie at 3100 East, County Road 350 North, creating 12 new jobs.

Miasa Automotive LLC will manufacture gearbox components for New York-based Magna Powertrain, an international supplier of engine and driveline components to General Motors, Ford, Honda, Toyota and BMW.

Founded in Spain in 1968, Miasa (formally known as Mecanizados Industria Auxiliar, SA) designs, develops and produces gearbox components for vehicles through the casting and machining of light copper and aluminum alloy. The company, based in Pamplona, Navarra, currently exports its gearbox components, selector forks and transfer case actuators to Portugal, United Kingdom, France, Romania, Germany and Brazil.

Connectivity between Indy and the World

Patrick Barkey writes this in his current column on Economic Analysis for the Indianapolis Business Journal:

"Even here in the isolated Midwest, it’s hard to find a product, a job or a community that hasn’t been affected by the high degree of connectivity among customers, businesses, and buyers and sellers of all kinds around the globe."

Noting Hoosiers' "love-hate relationship with globalization boom", he concludes that "the essence of globalization is competition." And, he says, competition forces us to produce better products and services at lower cost offering consumers more choices.

Barkey is an economist and director of economic and policy study at the College of Business, Ball State University.

Read the whole column in the 22-29 January 2007 edition of the IBJ.