GE Preaches American Manufacturing, Opens Plant in Russia
Despite GE’s CEO repeatedly calling for the revitalization of American manufacturing, the company Jeffrey Immelt controls announced Wednesday that it would soon begin a joint venture with two Russian companies that will include the construction of a manufacturing facility there.
The Connecticut-based company will take a 50 percent stake in a joint venture to update Russia’s aging energy infrastructure. GE will also take a 50 percent stake in another joint venture to update the nation’s health care infrastructure.
“These strategic partnerships are the latest examples of GE’s long-term commitment to Russia and our ‘company to country’ strategy, in which we work directly with governments to satisfy their needs in rapidly developing markets,” said GE International President and CEO Ferdinando Beccalli-Falco in a press release.
“We are working with our Russian partners to bring technology to Russia and develop it locally.”
That is in sharp contrast to the American-first ethic that CEO Jeffrey Immelt was advocating just over a year ago.
“We would do much better to observe the example of China. They’ve been growing fast because they invest in technology and they make things. They have no intention of letting up in manufacturing in order to evolve into a service economy,” Immelt said in June 2009.
“They know where the money is and they aim to get there first. America has to get back in that game.”
Immelt advocated for an increase in America’s manufacturing capacity, which should comprise 20 percent of total U.S. employment. That would basically double the number of manufacturing jobs available domestically.
Immelt apparently believes that those responsibilities are not his, but others that control massive corporations.
His company is the world’s second largest, according to Forbe’s Magazine. It currently employs 304,000 people around the world, 2,500 of whom work in Russia. The company has factories all around the world.
If the company were serious about its commitment to American manufacturing, it could easily bring those hundreds of thousands of jobs scattered around the world right back to America.
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