HBO show highlights Fuyao’s Moraine plant

Fuyao Global Chairman Cho Tak Wong at the formal opening of the Fuyao Glass America plant in Moraine in October. THOMAS GNAU/STAFF

Fuyao Global Chairman Cho Tak Wong at the formal opening of the Fuyao Glass America plant in Moraine in October. THOMAS GNAU/STAFF

HBO’s nightly news show VICE News sat down with Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co. Chairman Cho Tak Wong — also known as Cao Dewang — for its Thursday night episode to discuss the company’s Moraine plant.

VICE reporter Roberto Ferdman asked Cho why Fuyao chose to set up shop its auto-glass manufacturing operations in Moraine.

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Cho credited Ohio business development officials — including Kristi Tanner, the senior managing director at JobsOhio — who visited him multiple times and took him on a tour of the old GM plant in Moraine.

“We Chinese are very frugal,” Cho said through an interpreter. “The most important thing that brought us here was the director of business development in Ohio.”

RELATED: Fuyao founder extols U.S. manufacturing

VICE noted that Chinese investment in the United States has boomed in recent years, growing to about $55 billion in 2016 from about $2 billion in 2011.

VICE attributed the rising investment partly to the increased cost of Chinese labor, which it says is now only 4 percent cheaper than in the United States. VICE also said higher tax rates are a higher percentage of profit in China than in America.

Cho said he’s become somewhat famous because of the media attention paid to Fuyao’s Moraine investment. He said many Chinese entrepreneurs who are interested in breaking into the U.S. market have reached out to get his advice.

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