Puget Sound Business Journal Highlights SelectUSA Spinoff

From the Puget Sound Business Journal: https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2023/04/25/greater-seattle-partners-host-selectusa-event.html

International business executives touring Seattle region this week

Boeing’s Everett factory is among the stops for international executives who will be in town this week for a foreign direct investment program.

Representatives from companies around the world will tour the Puget Sound region in the coming days as part of an economic development program hosted by Greater Seattle Partners (GSP).

Senior-level executives from nearly 30 companies based in Asia, Europe and North America on Thursday and Friday will hear from entrepreneurs in Tacoma and visit Amazon headquarters, Boeing’s Everett factory and other locations. A Wednesday dinner with Microsoft officials also is on tap.

Other events are planned as part of the SelectUSA event.

Launched in 2007, SelectUSA is a federal program that promotes business investment. Since its inception, the program has facilitated over $146 billion in projects supporting more than 166,000 American jobs, according to the program’s website.

SelectUSA hosts programs around the country, and this week’s event is Seattle’s first SelectUSA Spinoff.

GSP had to compete to bring the program here, and the event has been in planning for six months, spokesman Robert Payne said.

Among those expected to attend are representatives of aerospace companies YG1 of South Korea and Dronehub of Warsaw, India-based climate tech company Earth Care Equipmentsand Grupo ACE, a Madrid-based company with multiple business lines, including architecture and engineering consulting and facilities engineering.

“We partnered very closely with the U.S. Department of Commerce and our international partners to engage these contacts,” Payne wrote in an email.

Bellevue already has landed two investments through SelectUSA, according to GSP.

Chargepoly, a French company that makes fast-charging infrastructure for electric-vehicle fleets, is opening its first U.S. location in Bellevue, GSP announced earlier this month.

In the past five years, the Seattle region has landed nine foreign direct investment projects from France, including Thales Alenia Space in Tukwila, Vetrotech in Auburn, and Kap IT in Seattle.

In March, GSP said Jobley, whose parent company Medley operates a health care job search site in Japan, has chosen to locate in Bellevue.

This year, Jobley plans to make an initial investment of more than $3 million and create five to 10 jobs in Bellevue, company CEO Yuta Tamaru said in a statement. Tamaru added the company is “extremely optimistic for growth given that greater Seattle is a top 10 life science cluster in the nation and continues to demonstrate a strong demand for talent.”

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