This is even after its workers were detained in an immigration raid at a plant it had a stake in
[SINGAPORE] Automotive giant Hyundai’s plan to invest US$26 billion into the US between 2025 to 2028 will continue as planned.
This is even after its workers were detained in an immigration raid at a plant it had a stake in.
Its chief executive officer Jose Munoz said on Wednesday (Nov 19) that the incident has not dented the South Korean company’s commitment to the US.
“We are not here for the short-term. We’ve been in this country for many years. This is the number one market, it’s where we make the most. We cannot just simply – because something happened – say this is going to change our plans,” said Munoz, who was speaking as a panellist at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum.
“On the contrary, I say we double down. We want to maintain our investment in the country, and we think that in the mid to long-term, things are going to get better,” he added.
About two months ago, over 300 South Korean workers were arrested by US immigration officials during a raid in a battery plant in the state of Georgia, sparking tensions between both countries and raising concerns that this may deter other South Korean companies from investing in the US.
However, Munoz said the positive outcome from this incident is that the immigration process for workers with specialised skills has been sorted out after several discussions involving the company, the federal and state government in the US, as well as immigration officials in both countries.
“We found a very good permanent solution, not only for our suppliers, but for our own people, we have thousands of people who come here and establish the operations and then they go back to Korea… We are coordinating much better among the companies that are impacted,” he said.
The problem previously was that the US did not have an immigration process that recognised specialised workers who had the skills to operate certain processes or technologies that were not available in the country.
Munoz added that the White House personally called him to apologise for the incident, and said that they were not aware that this immigration raid was going to take place.
The governor of Georgia Brian Kemp also said the same, adding that he had no idea what happened and that the raid was not under the jurisdiction of his state.
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