OK In-Depth; MG Story

It was July of last year when Governor Brad Henry joined jubilant business and political leaders in Oklahoma City to announce a deal that had been three years in the making. This is indeed an exciting day for Oklahoma and this is an exciting time in Oklahoma. It is such a pleasure and honor and a privilege for me on the behalf of all Oklahomans to officially welcome NG Motors to our great state. China's oldest car maker Nanjing automobile corporation had acquired the bankrupt British car brand MG and was planning to base its North American operations in the sooner state. Between a new assembly plan in Ardmore, a company headquarters in Oklahoma City and research facilities on the OU campus in Norman, the proposal was expected to directly create more than 500 local jobs and with that news coming just months after the decision by General Motors to halt production in Oklahoma, the governor was eager to show his appreciation to Nanjing President Eugene Wei.

I want to present this plaque to you. The state of Oklahoma excludes NG Motors North American European corporation on the location of your facility in our great state. In recognition of your company's major investment in the state's growing economy and most important, the commitment to a lasting partnership with the state of Oklahoma. We hope you will proudly display this in your new corporate headquarters here in Oklahoma. The plan was ambitious from the start. To launch an entirely new line of cars by 2008, open 350 dealerships across the country and produce 100,000 vehicles by 2010, all from the first Chinese car plant to operate in the United States. But speaking back in July, newly appointed MG North America President and CEO Duke

Hale said he was confident everything would go as planned. Over 30 years of being in the car business, I have never had better cooperation from the team that we're working with in the UK, as well as the team from China. This deal will work. His optimism didn't last, though. Earlier this month, Hale and two top managers left the company after complaining that its plans for the US had been dramatically scaled back, and reports have surfaced that the American partners have grown increasingly frustrated and impatient with the lack of progress on the Ardmore plant and the Chinese way of doing business. Nanjing's first MGs rolled off the assembly line this week in China, accompanied by much fanfare, but the company's future plans to come to the US were cast into doubt. After employee Paul Stowe made the following statement in a report aired Wednesday on NPR's Morning Edition. My understanding there is no more plans with the Oklahoma plant.

We are discussing possible ventures in America, sorry, in the future, but I don't believe there's anything on the table at the moment with Oklahoma. Though this was not the first time questions were raised about MGs Oklahoma Venture, Stowe's comments still caught state and local officials off guard. Speaking with reporters from the Oklahoma, the president and CEO of the state chamber Dick Rush was quick to respond. There has been a media frenzy outside this building, and I don't want to kill a rumor here today. First and foremost, you will be seeing this all over the news tonight in the morning, but a story appeared this morning on National Public Radio that the deal was dead. It's not. Norman Attorney Mark Nuddle, who's head of one of the major investment partners in MG North America and was largely responsible for lowering the company to Oklahoma in the first place, issued a statement saying he had just returned from a trip to China, where he and Nanjing officials were working out the details of their agreement. He didn't reply to our multiple interview requests, but you can read his statement on our website, KGOU.org.

All of the party's concerns said that Paul Stowe, Nanjing's manager of product quality who spoke to NPR, was not an official company spokesperson, was not involved in the negotiations with Oklahoma, and was therefore not speaking on behalf of the company. That may be true, says Louisa Lim, NPR's reporter in Shanghai, who interviewed Stowe, but as for the claim that he was voicing his own opinion and not that of company management, she says, I know what Nanjing's management believes, because I also happen to interview company president Eugen Wei. New sources in England and here in China said that also discussions are still ongoing with American partners, and no longer talking about building a factory in Oklahoma, is that true? You ask an extremely direct question, Eugen Wei says. I should say the Oklahoma project has been ongoing for a relatively long time.

In that time, there have been some factors that have changed, perhaps the scope and field of our cooperation have also undergone some changes. So, is there still a plan to build a factory in Oklahoma? From my news sources, I think the US side still wants to build a factory. Will you still be building it with them? We won't necessarily be building it, because the type of our cooperation is varied. For example, we can cooperate on technological issues or on branding, but cooperation doesn't necessarily mean that we will go to the US to build a factory there. Cool. You may originally, it would have been the first Chinese car plan on American soil, so if it's not going ahead, then that would be... A pity, he asks? Yes, a pity, she says. He continues on... Of course, I think cooperation, the first thing is the form of cooperation.

The second thing is that it can be step-by-step, like making friends, like a young girl and boy who are not married. You could just be friends, and whether or not you get married, making friends is the first step. And so cooperation also has many layers. In many cases, if our cooperation makes progress, then there will be future prospects. Regardless of whether that cooperation takes the form of the MG AutoAssembly plant that Nanjing President Yuzhian Wei says won't necessarily be built, or takes some other as yet unclear form in the future, many residents of Ardmore seem to be taking the news in good stride. Typical of them is Maria Wilkinson, who owns a garden shop in downtown Ardmore, and is herself a former chairman of the Ardmore Chamber of Commerce. I don't know if you've been in Ardmore or know it very well, but it's a really wonderful thriving community. So, you know, there's been a lot of excitement about MG coming, but the very fact that they chose us, you know, means we have a healthy economy,

and we will still have one if they don't come. And would we be disappointed, absolutely, that our life would still be great. Whatever the outcome, economist Vince Orza at Oklahoma City University says the potential economic benefits Oklahoma companies can reap from doing business with China are well worth the extra time and energy, even if they do bring with them occasional stumbling blocks and pitfalls. And the State Department of Commerce is hoping to forge more transnational business relationships through its trade office in Beijing. With help from Kurt Gwartney and Luisa Lim, I'm KGOU News Director Scott Gurion.