Alabama Tombigbee Regional Commission Helps to Drive Critical FDI to Rural Wilcox County, Alabama

Devastating tornadoes that struck rural Wilcox County, Alabama in 2011 resulted in the loss of lives and permanent jobs when production in the region’s critical timber and paper production sectors was forced to cease for a number of weeks.

To help advance the region’s economic recovery and resiliency efforts, EDA, in 2013, invested $1.9 million in the town of Pine Hill to make water and sewer improvements needed to bring GD Copper (USA), Inc.’s specialized tubing and copper products operations to the county.

GD Copper is a Chinese firm that is adding to a growing metals cluster in southwest Alabama, which also includes such firms as Thyssen Krupp, SET Enterprises, Metals USA and JMC Steel.

Critically, the Alabama-Tombigbee Regional Commission, which covers ten counties and 47 municipalities in Alabama, helped to bring eighteen funding partners together to make this rural Alabama project a reality.

Today, this five hundred thousand square foot $100 million facility employs over 300 people in rural Wilcox County.

This project continues to show EDA’s commitment to job creation and economic development in rural America. Economic Development and job creation in rural America is not an easy task. Preparation, partnerships and combining resources is not only a desirable task, but a necessary one to compete in today’s global economy.