Chinese company picks former GM site in Ohio for new plant

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A Chinese company will build an automotive glass-making plant in southwest Ohio, creating about 800 jobs and revitalizing a former General Motors factory site, officials said Friday.

The chairman of the Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co. and the owner of the site signed an agreement at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus. The company is making a $200 million investment at the site in Moraine, near Dayton.

Ohio officials said it’s the biggest Chinese investment yet in Ohio.

The plant is expected to begin operations late next year, employing about 800 people within three years. The General Motors assembly plant employed 1,100 workers when it closed in late 2008.

“Ohio has been through some difficult times, but we are doing better,” Ohio Gov. John Kasich told Fuyao’s chairman, Cao Dewang.

The manufacturer expects to start hiring for management positions in May, with manufacturing employees coming onboard at the end of the year, Cao told reporters. Fuyao plans to begin production by June 2015.

Industrial Realty Group acquired the former GM plant site in 2011 and renamed it Progress Park.