Toyota to build assembly plant in Mississippi

by nukegingrich | February 26, 2007 at 05:48 pm

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4000 employees, plus thousands more in support businesses. This is welcome news for north Mississippi which has seen the redeployment of thousands of furniture manufacturing jobs since the passage of NAFTA.

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi plans a major economic development announcement on Tuesday amid reports the state will become home to a Toyota Motor Corp. manufacturing plant.

The Nikkei, a Japanese business newspaper, said on its Web site Monday that Toyota will build an $880 million sports utility vehicle plant in Mississippi, eliminating sites in Arkansas and Tennessee from contention.

Barbour spokesman Pete Smith, asked if the announcement involved Toyota, responded: "We're not saying anything about it." Daniel Sieger, spokesman for Toyota's North American manufacturing division, said there was "nothing to announce at this moment."

Mississippi Development Authority officials did not immediately return calls for comment.

Nissan Motor Corp. opened an assembly plant north of Jackson in 2003. The 4,000-employee plant produced about 278,000 vehicles last year.

Officials in three northeast Mississippi counties _ Pontotoc, Lee and Union _ have been trying to market a 1,700-acre site as a possible location for an auto manufacturing plant.

The site, nicknamed "Wellspring," is about 10 miles northwest of Tupelo. It's next to U.S. 78, a federal highway that's scheduled to be designated as Interstate 22.