Walmart-supplier moves plant from China to Florida

A supplier of consumer products to Wal-Mart Stores Inc has moved production to the US from China by opening a factory in Jacksonville, Florida.

Hans-Mill Corp, affiliated with the Millennium Group of China, remodeled an existing 121,000 square-foot facility that used to be a printing plan and opened it in May. It will produce stainless steel trash cans which will be sold at Walmart stores. Millennium is a major supplier of consumer home products and has manufacturing facilities in Suzhou and Dongguan in the mainland.

"Hans-Mill is a US manufacturing operation that was set up to make products in the US that were previously made in China," Jeff Ahearn, senior vice-president of business development said in an interview.

"We are already up to 40 workers at the plant," he continued. "Eventually we should get to 50 to 60 workers when we reach full production," he added which should be in the second half of 2018.

Ahearn said the plant is part of Walmart's $250 billion initiative to reshore or bring back US manufacturing jobs that had been outsourced to China and other nations.

He said Hans-Mill focused on the southeastern states when it began looking for a plant site in the US, and that "we were impressed with Jacksonville, the infrastructure and availability of

Hans-Mill President and CEO James Han told the Florida Times-Union that he was lured to Jacksonville after at least two years of negotiations with business leaders and an economic development initiative of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.

News reports said that Hans-Mill received an incentive package valued at about $200,000 based on the project meeting certain requirements.

paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com