NC’s top business recruiter cautions social bills, 2024 election could slow job deals
Christopher Chung stresses that he’s apolitical, but the man responsible for helping recruit businesses to North Carolina told a ballroom-full of business leaders in Durham last week how politics affect his organization’s aims.
Chung is the CEO of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC), a public-private group that attracts new companies and encourages existing companies to expand in the Tar Heel State. Past efforts include bringing Toyota to Randolph County and getting the Durham semiconductor producer Wolfspeed to extend into Chatham County.
Speaking on a panel Friday at the NC Chamber’s 2024 Economic Forecast Forum, he cautioned state lawmakers to avoid controversial bills that touch on the “social realm,” especially as North Carolina seeks to retain its spot at the top of state business rankings.
“All of you who are from North Carolina, you’ve seen how far it’s come as a state,” he said. “And a lot of that is because of vision and dedication of that vision. To sacrifice all that positive momentum by some things that are designed to make headlines and things like that, I just don’t feel like that’s a good thing for economic development.”
Without naming specific bills, he contended new social policies enacted in rival states have hamstrung their ability to attract workers in what remains a tight labor market.
“We’re seeing a number of states that we frequently compete with pass legislation that, whatever your political beliefs, generally (people in) the business community felt made it harder for them to be perceived to be operating in an inclusive environment,” Chung said.
Chung told the audience that members of the North Carolina General Assembly are “always great” about asking EDPNC whether the group thinks potential policies will present “any economic development ramifications.”
Since gaining a veto-proof supermajority last spring, North Carolina Republicans have not shied away from passing policies addressing contentious social issues, including a 12-week abortion ban, a Parents’ Bill of Rights and a ban on transgender girls competing in women’s athletics.
Biden vs. Trump and the future of NC’s ‘clean energy economy’
During the Economic Forecast Forum, held at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel near Raleigh-Durham International Airport, Chung also commented on how the 2024 election could shape future jobs announcements in North Carolina — both before and after ballots are cast.
As presidential elections approach, companies tend to pause making large-scale economic commitments that may be impacted by White House policies. North Carolina could experience this hesitancy more acutely this year, Chung said, due to the type of the projects EDPNC is pursuing.
“When it comes to business recruitment, nearly a third of the deals that we’re talking to at this moment are related to some aspect of the clean energy economy,” he said. “That’s either vehicle electrification or battery production.”
Chung said many of these deals have been “spurred and accelerated” by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed under President Joe Biden.
“So again, whatever one’s politics are, we hear enough from companies on the other end of the line that the IRA has been a big part of what is accelerating their plans to make these big investments in job creation facilities,” he said.
Under the Inflation Reduction Act, foreign electric vehicle battery producers have been incentivized to manufacture in the United States, with many landing in Southern states. In the second half of 2023 alone, North Carolina announced incoming lithium-ion battery facilities near Wilmington, in Davidson County and in Wake County, as well as a major expansion to Toyota’s future battery plant near Greensboro. “The fast-growing clean energy economy represents a significant part of the state’s recent economic development track record,” Gov. Roy Cooper’s office said in a recent year-end statement.
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Chung said North Carolina’s claim as the back-to-back top state for business, according to the annual CNBC rankings, has propelled it onto the shortlists of places companies consider for their billion-dollar investments. However, he expects these types of major announcements will become less frequent if the outcome of this fall’s election remains cloudy.
“If it’s a coin-flip election at a national level for the presidency by this time in July, it’s easy for us to imagine things will start to slow down from some of those companies,” he said. “Because the choice is between a Republican and a Democratic administration, especially if it’s Biden versus Trump, those are probably two very different outlooks on something like IRA. If you’ve got someone like Biden saying, ‘OK, double down on it,’ and you’ve got someone like Trump saying, ‘I’m going to repeal it.’”
Political uncertainly often tends to suppress large private-sector investments. North Carolina’s green energy push could make that dynamic more pronounced.
“Like most election years, we normally see stuff slow down as companies wait to see how the electoral cards fall,” Chung told the audience. “This year is probably going to be even more so, because so much of our pipeline is overweighted on companies that are clean-energy related, and definitely seeing the positive impacts of something like the Inflation Reduction Act.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2024 at 7:00 AM.
