North Carolina's battered manufacturing sector beat out four other states Friday, when Honda Aircraft said it would build its new, state-of-the-art jets in Greensboro.

The company has committed to building a $100 million campus at Piedmont Triad International Airport that will house its global headquarters and production. It will create 283 jobs over the next five years.

The Triad has been among the hardest-hit regions in the state as lucrative textile and furniture manufacturing jobs left North Carolina for cheaper labor overseas. Companies such as Dell have created low-paying jobs in the sector, but Honda is promising average annual wages of $70,542, twice the annual income in Guilford County.

But the importance of the announcement goes beyond manufacturing jobs, said Dan Lynch, president of the Greensboro Economic Development Alliance. The victory cements Honda Aircraft's headquarters in the Triad and provides design, engineering, sales and marketing jobs, as well.

"We're getting ... one of the five major divisions of Honda worldwide," Lynch said. "I think that's going to be wonderful for Greensboro and well beyond our borders."

Honda's decision "adds significantly" to North Carolina's efforts to build an aerospace-defense cluster, Commerce Secretary Jim Fain said Friday.

In exchange for its investments in facilities and people in Guilford County, Honda will receive at least $9.5 million in state and local grants and tax credits over the next 12 years. State officials on Friday approved a grant worth up to $6.68 million, local officials have agreed to pitch in incentives worth up to $1.4 million, and the company will receive state and local help with the site infrastructure and worker training.

Honda Aircraft is trying to tap a still-untested market for planes that are smaller, lighter and more efficient. The company has received more than 100 orders, exceeding expected demand, for the $3.65 million HondaJet, which seats up to 8 passengers.

"This project is of significant economic and emotional importance to Honda," said Jeffrey Smith, assistant vice president of American Honda Motor Co. "It has always been a dream for our company to take to the skies."

Although Honda Aircraft had named Greensboro its headquarters in August, economic developers had feared that if the company put its manufacturing in Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi -- or even elsewhere in North Carolina -- the headquarters would follow.

Of particular concern to Honda was the availability of a well-trained work force, Lynch said. Greensboro was well-suited, with a Guilford Technical Community College aviation program at the airport and a materials science program at N.C. A&T State University that will be relevant to developing Honda's high-tech aircraft, he said.

"We think good people will make great jets, and the people here are great," Smith said.

Honda also considered the airport's infrastructure, the weather, access to a potential supply network -- a FedEx hub will open at the airport in 2009 -- and local teamwork, he said.

But in the end, there was perhaps no substitute for the five years Honda has already invested in Greensboro.

"It was a choice based on several objective criteria, but we have felt at home in Greensboro for quite a while," Smith said. "In that respect, making a selection out of a number of options was a rather easy choice."

Although the incentives package for Honda is just a fraction of the $260 million that Google could get for putting Internet infrastructure in Lenoir, it has critics.

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