Tarboro to Get New Plant and 300 Jobs

You can't keep a good job if there isn't one to be had. Even with North Carolina's dramatically low unemployment rate; there are people stuck in pockets where there's just no work. Now one of those pockets is getting an economic shot in the arm with 300 new jobs.

Carolina System Technology is adding 300 news jobs to an automotive parts plant under construction in Tarboro. That brings the total number of new jobs there to almost 500.

The owners of the company are based in Tokyo, Japan and Governor Hunt met with them during his recent trade mission. Company leaders are saying that visit made a difference.

Steel girders pop up from a rural Tarboro setting that will soon be a huge plant where monitoring systems for Honda Accords will be made. Carolina Systems Technology broke ground in July promising 160 new jobs. According to Edgecombe County Manager Joe Durham, that figure jumped significantly last week.

State leaders credit Governor Hunt's trade mission to Europe and Japan for securing the new jobs for Tarboro. The Governor met with officials from CST's Japanese parent company in Tokyo who say the governor's visit definitely influenced their decision to expand.

Oppie Jordan is an Economic Developer in Edgecombe County. She was on the Japanese trip with the governor and credits him with bringing home these jobs.

For leaders in Edgecombe County the important thing is not how it happened, but how much will it bring.

Company officials wouldn't say whether they would have expanded in Tarboro if the Governor hadn't visited. They did, however, say that the relationship the Governor and Secretary of Commerce Tolson have established with them has fostered the company's confidence in this state.

The Tarboro facility is scheduled to open in February.