Capital investment in Alabama topped $9 billion and likely set a record in 2022 based on preliminary figures, Alabama Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield told economic developers Monday.
Canfield delivered the opening address of the 2023 Winter Conference of the Economic Development Association of Alabama in Montgomery.
After the pandemic slowed the economy, foreign capital investment and trade, Canfield said the state came roaring back in 2022.
Milestone projects like the Novelis announcement in Baldwin County, Airbus adding another final assembly line in Mobile, automotive expansion and innovation in electric vehicles, and unprecedented development in Alabama rural communities helped blunt in Alabama the economic downturn felt across the country.
“Hopefully, Alabama will experience a shallow and short recession,” Canfield said.
If so, that will be due to hard work by a number of organizations. They include the Alabama Department of Commerce and the governor’s office, efforts in workforce development led by AIDT, and a focus on growing the state’s economy in new ways through the work of Innovate Alabama. Some highlights:
- AIDT worked with 144 projects in 42 counties to fill approximately 30,000 positions.
- Rural economic development efforts resulted in more than $3.5 billion in new capital investment and more than 4,800 jobs since 2020.
- Inbound investment in Alabama is likely to hit a record when 2022 totals are in.
- Alabama set an employment record in December with 2,120,500 jobs.
- December figures are expected to show a new annual record for exports from Alabama.
The announced expansion of the Airbus plant in Mobile was among the state’s economic development highlights in 2022. (Airbus)
The positive news in 2022 would be in keeping with preliminary estimates from Alabama Power. The company is one of the largest private-sector economic development entities in the state and it worked with state and local officials on new and expanding projects that brought an announced 7,307 jobs and $6 billion in new investment last year – both the largest numbers the company has on record for one year. Alabama Power serves roughly two-thirds of the state.
Greg Barker, president of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama (which includes Alabama Power and other private companies) said his organization saw 49 leads that turned into 21 projects in 2022. Additionally, EDPA efforts like the Alabama Business Intelligence Center and an assessment of the state’s agriculture and forest products industries are identifying new leads and acutely focused recruitment that is turning into more active projects in 2023.
EDPA is working with Innovate Alabama to ensure that new targeted incentives turn into the kind of homegrown, growth companies that the Legislature supports.
Barker said Alabama is beginning to see the kind of geographic and business leadership diversity that was envisioned in recent legislative efforts. He and Canfield said those successes highlight the need to renew and expand incentives programs like the Alabama Jobs Act and Growing Alabama.
Officials break ground in October 2022 on the Novelis plant in Baldwin County, another bright spot in the state’s economic development record during last year. (Hal Yeager / Governor’s Office)
The Alabama Jobs Act incentivizes new and existing industry based on job growth and payroll expansion. Growing Alabama incentivizes the private sector to support qualified economic development projects.
Canfield said Alabama needs to extend both incentive programs through July 2028 and raise or eliminate the statutory cap to aid the programs’ pay-as-you-go approach. The commerce secretary went further in calling for adding renewable energy projects to the mix.
Barker praised those efforts, noting that the state’s need for shovel-ready economic development sites is high, while the inventory of “megasites” for large-scale projects is behind what other states can offer.
Or, as Canfield put it, “We need to supercharge our economic development strategies because other states are taking aim at us.”
