(Adds comments from union official, congressman)
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - General Electric (NYSE:GE) Co GE.N
said on Monday it will move production of large, gas-powered
engines to Canada from Wisconsin, along with 350 jobs, to access
export financing no longer available in the United States.
In its latest salvo aimed at persuading Congress to renew
the U.S. Export-Import Bank's charter which expired in June, GE
will invest $265 million in a new state-of-the-art manufacturing
plant at a Canadian location yet to be determined.
The facility, to open in about 20 months, can be expanded to
provide flexible manufacturing capacity to support other GE
businesses, including engines for railroad locomotives, GE said.
In exchange for moving the production from Waukesha,
Wisconsin, Export Development Canada will provide financing
support for a range of future products, including some still
made in the United States.
These are expected to come from GE's Water & Power, Oil &
Gas and Transportation units, a GE spokeswoman said.
At the 106-year-old Waukesha plant, GE builds piston engines
for power and oilfield use that run on natural gas or methane
from landfills. But these engines are not typically sold with
EXIM financing, so the move is more aimed at finding government
export credit for other businesses, the GE spokeswoman said.
The company also acknowledged that the recent downturn in
oil and gas drilling activity was a factor in the decision to
end engine manufacturing in Waukesha.
The announcement stands in sharp contrast to a 2014 visit to
the site by President Barack Obama, in which he touted its
worker training program as "a model for the country."
"I'd say the workers at Waukesha are the real world
casualties in the right-wing fight to close the EXIM Bank," said
Frank Larkin, a spokesman for the International Association of
Machinists, which represents plant workers.
Republican Representative James Sensenbrenner, who
represents Waukesha and opposes EXIM "in its current form," said
in a statement that the move was a "sober reminder of the urgent
need to stay competitive in the global marketplace" and called
for lower corporate tax rates.
In recent weeks, GE has announced several deals to locate
thousands of new jobs out of the United States following EXIM's
closure and to access government export credit from the United
Kingdom, France, Hungary and China.
GE Vice Chairman John Rice told Reuters that foreign export
credit agencies are "rolling out the red carpet" for the
industrial conglomerate, more than tripling the export financing
capacity it received under EXIM.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Diane Craft)