Globalizing Indiana: a top priority if state businesses are to stay competitive.

• Author: Akard, Steve
• Position: VIEWPOINT

EARLIER THIS YEAR I talked to college students at Rose-Hulman about foreign investment in Indiana. I noted the enormous benefits to the state from Subaru's decision to locate in Lafayette in the 1980s, and the courageous choice along State Road 38, despite the road's name, the Bataan Memorial Highway The professor interrupted and asked how many students--all under the age of 25--understood the reference to Bataan. Nary a hand went up.

Some important lessons, beyond the challenges of history, emerged from the discussion that day: First, students who have grown up with a Subaru plant in the neighborhood their entire lives think of it more as an Indiana than a Japanese company. Second, xenophobia, though it occasionally surfaces in ugly ways, does not have the vice grip on the Hoosier mindset that it once did.

Globalizing Indiana's economy is a top priority if Indiana businesses are to stay competitive. Indiana products must compete in global markets and Indiana must provide the business climate essential for companies to manufacture those products. The Indiana Economic Development Corp. (IEDC) is committed to making those happen.

Just eight months into his new administration, Gov. Mitch Daniels led a trade and investment delegation--the largest in the state's history--to Japan and Taiwan. Less than a year later, he returned to Japan with another delegation and added a stop in South Korea. The message is clear: Indiana is open for business on a global scale. From Toyota to Rolls-Royce, Honda to Nestle, international investors are taking notice.

The Japanese Consulate in Chicago estimates that 225 Japanese-owned companies employ nearly 42,000 Hoosiers. Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Canada are other primary sources of foreign investment and employment in the state. Overall, foreign firms have invested...