On
March 13,2006, Kia Motors America (kma), Kia's sales and marketing
company in yhe U.S., and the State of Georgia executed the Site
Acquisition and Development
Agreement,
which announced plans to construct a $1 billion autotmotive assembly
and manufacturing plant on 2,259 acres of land in West Point, Ga.,
the first plant for Kia
in North America.
"We
take pride in how far we've come, creating a foothold in the American
market, including our first U. S manufacturing plant- Kia Motors
Manufacturing Georgia- currently
under construction in West Point, Georgia", said Byung Mo Ahn,
group president and CEO of Kia Mototrs America and KMMG. " The
state-of-the-art plant will
beginn producing Kia vehicles in fall 2009, and at full capacity it
will have the capability to manufacture 300,000 vehicles annually.
This project is the largest in history
for the State of Georgia and is already having a posititve impact on
the economy. When the plant goes online KMMG will have created 2,500
jobs for which we already
have received more than 43,000 applications; additionally, as many as
another 6,000 jobs will be created by various plant suppliers."
The
43,000+ applications were received in just 30 days, a number that set
new automotive benchmarks for both the quantitiy of applicants during
the allotted timeframe and
because they were all received online.
"
The numbers are truly remarkable," says Randy Jackson, director
of human resources and administration for KMMG.
"
These applicants are educated and experienced, truly demonstrating
the quality of Georgia's workforce. Georgia and its neighboring
states have a prepared, educated and experienced workforce reday to
build the future".
Currently,
KMMG is in the process of hiring salaried and operating team members
who will be building Kia's next generation Sorento. Kia is searching
for team members who will help reinforce its commitment to sell
innovative, high- quality vehicles at affordable prices when
production begins in the last quartes of 2009.
Construction
at the plant is expected to be finished early in 2009, Test vehicles
are scheduled to begin production in March of that same year. During
the testing phase, vehicles will be examined for quality prior to
mass production later in the year.
