Alabama’s thriving economy owes a great deal of thanks to Mercedes-Benz and the production plant the company built more than a decade ago.
In 1994, Billy Joe Camp, director of the Alabama Development Office, helped bring the MB plant to Tuscaloosa County. At the time, he had no idea what the deal was going to bring to the area.
Since then, the auto industry has increased by leaps and bounds in Alabama. And Mercedes is at the forefront. On Valentine’s Day in 1997, the plant created the first vehicle ever produced in this southern state: the Mercedes-Benz M-Class. Since that day, Alabama has been a center for auto production. There are three major auto factories in the state today, and last year they produced more than 738,000 vehicles. And that’s just for one year!
As a result of the Mercedes-Benz plant, the state has become a major entity in the worldwide auto industry. But this has also transformed the future of the state. Currently, Alabama has one of the strongest economies in the entire nation. In the four years between 2002 and 2006, the state’s per-capita income increased by more than 20 percent. That’s more than the national average and the highest among the southern states.
But wait–there are even more benefits for the state. The flourishing auto industry has created a desire for a number of other high-profile businesses moving into the state. As a result, Alabama is quickly shedding the image of being an impoverished and backwards state. People in northern states like Michigan, where the auto industry began, are quickly realizing that Alabama’s auto industry is a force to be reckoned with. In fact, thousands of auto workers in Michigan might soon be looking for jobs in Alabama as the northern state’s economy continues to fall while the southern state’s outlook only gets more positive.
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