Last week, Husqvarna, a Swedish-based manufacturer, announced that it would be closing its plant in Nashville, Arkansas, which employs about 700 people in the town of about 4,000 people.
In an interview with Talk Business & Politics, Clint O’Neal, executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission (AEDC), said the state is prioritizing the employees by finding another employer.
“We [AEDC] met with the plant manager, with the members of the general assembly, mayor and county judge on how we can market this,” O’Neal said. “As we know with this [job] market with the availability of skilled workers shortage. If we can show companies around the nation that we have a plant here in Arkansas where there's a 280,000 square foot manufacturing facility with a 350,000 square foot distribution center and 600 skilled employees, we believe we have a really good opportunity to market this.”
According to theNashville News-Leader, the reason for the closure was the company is consolidating its Nashville plant into plants in China, Brazil and South Carolina.
Fintech Summit
Next month, the VenCent Summit will be hosted in Little Rock. The event will try to match fintech companies with banks and bankers. O’Neal said the summit is a great opportunity for the state.
“It’s promoting the state as a place where these established businesses can take a part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and that is huge. It’s bringing people by what we’re doing with the VenCent conference,” he said. “There’s some states you travel to and you walk away with the impression of ‘well I’m not impressed.’ Arkansas is a place where you visit and it’s a beautiful state, high quality of life, low cost of living and where people care about one another. People say ‘I may want to live there one day.’”
According to Investopedia, fintech is technology that tries to improve and automate the delivery and use of financial services. FIS, which is the world's largest provider of banking and payment technologies, is headquartered in Little Rock, according to Metro Little Rock. FIS manages the FIS FinTech Accelerator, which is located in The Venture Center.
The summit will feature Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders, a Republican, and U.S Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock, as guest speakers. Hill is the vice chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and chairman of the new subcommittee that oversees all areas related to digital assets and financial technology.
