INVESTISMENT KOMANSE TET KALE

Jacqueline Charles/Miami Herald/MCT Kim Woong Ki, second from right, visits the site of his future factory in northeast Haiti.
By Jacqueline Charles, McClatchy Newspapers

CARACOL, Haiti -- Standing in the middle of the dirt-poor rural
village on a cool afternoon, the neatly dressed Korean garment tycoon
surveyed the rugged mountaintops and surrounding bean fields as he tried
to envision the future a year from now.

But it wasn't until Kim Woong Ki stared into the curious faces
surrounding him that the chairman of Korea's leading manufacturer and
exporter of textiles and clothing realized the real value of his $78
million business investment decision.

"I didn't really set out to bring people hope," Kim said, as he rode
away from the village on Haiti's northern coast halfway between the
cities of Cap-Haitien and Ouanaminthe. "Coming here, seeing the site and
walking among the people, I realized that what I'm going to do here in
creating the factory and the jobs is give people hope."

A major supplier to U.S. retailers Target, Wal-Mart, Kohl's and Gap,
Sae-A is expanding its garment-making operations to Haiti as the anchor
tenant in a new 617-acre industrial park being created in the country's
underdeveloped northern region. For the first time, Haiti's 2
million-a-week T-shirt-stitching industry will also include the
country's only knit and dyeing mill with Sae-A pumping 6,000 tons of
ground water a day for its export operations.

"For the first time ever, apparel sewn in Haiti will be using fabric
made in Haiti," said Kim, whose company already has operations in
Guatemala and Nicaragua.

With the company gearing up to recruit Haitian managers as early as
this month for a planned March 2012 opening, the deal is already having a
multiplier effect. Local hotel and restaurant owners are optimistic, as
are potential workers like 23-year-old Luckner Peter, about the
possibility of 20,000 new jobs in the area. Luckner was among dozens of
young men hired by the government at 50 cents a hole to help install a
fence around the property.

"This is going to change our community," said Louicot Alexandre,
president of the chamber of commerce for Northeast Haiti, a region of
about 300,000 residents. "This shows that Haiti is prepared to do
business with the world, and it's OK to do business with Haiti."

Valued at about $300 million, the job-creation package is one of
Haiti's biggest foreign investments. U.S. officials call it an
"unprecedented collaboration" between the Haitian and U.S. governments,
and the Inter-American Development Bank. So much is at stake that some
Haiti observers mused that it was perhaps one of the reasons for the
United States' heavy involvement in the Nov. 28 presidential election
debacle.

Twice before, Kim had tried to invest in Haiti. Each time, his
decision was thwarted. There was political turmoil in 1994 after he
signed a memorandum of understanding, and then the Jan. 12, 2010,
earthquake shortly after another trip.

"We have in our business proposal a huge chapter called hurdles and
obstacles," said Lon Garwood, advisor to Kim. "Our initial business
proposal didn't look like a business proposal. It looked like why we
can't do business in Haiti."

But that was before the U.S. government stepped in, and before U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's personal plea on behalf of Haiti
during a Korea visit.

With the Haitian government donating the land and compensating
farmers, the U.S. plans to build 5,000 houses, a 25-megawatt electricity
grid for the park and surrounding area, and a waste and water treatment
plant as part of its $124 million contribution. The Inter-American
Development Bank is contributing more than $100 million for construction
of buildings and roads.

"These kinds of investment deals are incredibly hard," said Cheryl
Mills, Clinton's chief of staff, who has been credited with leading the
effort for more than a year to bring together all sides including
Haiti's private sector. "They take prolonged coordination and
consultation, and accommodation and negotiation. But ultimately what
they really take is an audacious amount of faith."

It is this faith that the U.S. and others are banking on as they
seek to revive Haiti's post-earthquake shattered economy by helping the
nation's garment industry take better advantage of U.S.-Congress
approved duty-free trade legislation benefiting the industry. Once
boasting 100,000 jobs, the industry has just 28,000. About 9,000 of
those were created because of the removal of tariffs.

Last May, a sympathetic Congress extended the trade benefits to
2020. Now Haiti's private sector is hoping to attract 60,000 new jobs
with the industrial park in the north. They are also eyeing another park
in the south, just outside of the quake-ravaged capital of
Port-au-Prince.



"We are no longer talking just about garment assembly. We are
talking about a true textile industry short of planting cotton. That is
what is being developed," said Georges Sassine, who is also responsible
for implementing the U duty-free legislation.

Sae-A's revenues are more than double Haiti's garment industry's
$512 million exports for 2009. In addition to Haitian managers, the
company has committed to pay line workers at least four times Haiti's
average $640 GDP per capita. The facility itself will boast a cooling
system, recreational facilities and a football field. With the
construction bid package currently being prepared to go out this month,
the first phase has already been laid out. Sae-A's operations will
occupy 126 of 185 acres, said Mark D'Sa, a Miami-based executive with
Gap who has been on loan with the State Department to help Haiti better
take advantage of trade legislation.

D'Sa said other potential clients include a furniture maker and two
other apparel companies. Not far from the site, and separate from the
industrial park, the Dominican government is planning to build a
university.

Still, the deal has detractors with some protesting using farmland
for what some are calling "sweatshops." Government officials say the
land belongs to the state and compensation packages are being worked out
for farmers who have been illegally living off it.

"We have sought investments outside of Port-au-Prince for years,"
said Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. "In Haiti, the real
tough infrastructure investments in energy, ports and industrial zones
have largely been avoided. It's these investments that will generate the
productive base of which Haiti can grow and prosper
economically."


SA C TOKET LA CHAJ LA DEYE.

Still, the deal has detractors with some protesting using farmland
for what some are calling "sweatshops." Government officials say the
land belongs to the state and compensation packages are being worked out
for farmers who have been illegally living off it.

"We have sought investments outside of Port-au-Prince for years,"
said Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. "In Haiti, the real
tough infrastructure investments in energy, ports and industrial zones
have largely been avoided. It's these investments that will generate the
productive base of which Haiti can grow and prosper economically."
SA C TOKET LA CHAJ LA DEYE.

Malgre mize e soufrans pep Ayisyen, gen lot pep ki kwe nan nou toujou!

Pou detrakte kap kritike proje sa yo de "sweatshops" sa pap etonne nou si yon jou nou we neg sa yo ou byen pitit yo ap travay nan faktori sa yo.
Yon investisman de plis ke yon demi Billion Dolla!!

Jan Zouke di a Nou souwete ke sa se troket la chaj la deye!!