Can foreign firms provide boost?

In recent months two international airline carriers have announced plans to come to Warwick’s T.F. Green Airport. Together they’ll provide a marginal but much-needed boost to annual passenger traffic at Rhode Island’s flagship airport.
Whether their impending arrival and the purported interest in the Ocean State from a handful of other foreign businesses have the potential to cause even a ripple in the stagnating local economy, however, remains an unanswered question. Neither Gov. Gina M. Raimondo nor officials with the R.I. Commerce Corp. were available to discuss the issue last week.
But first the good news. Transportes Aereos de Cabo Verde and T.F. Green Airport officials last month announced the Cape Verdean airline’s decision to leave Boston’s Logan Airport and move operations to Warwick.
Beginning June 2, the carrier will offer two flights a week to the Cape Verde Islands, marking the second foreign-owned airline to announce services in the last six months.
Germany-based Condor Airlines last year announced seasonal flights from Green to Frankfurt, also beginning in June.
The new businesses offer at least a temporary respite for Green officials from the steady decline in annual passenger traffic since 2005, when it totaled 5.7 million. In 2014, it fell 6 percent year over year to 3.6 million.
The new businesses would add to the overall passenger traffic, but not by much. TACV will fly a 757 aircraft – 210 passengers – two or three times weekly, which the airport says could average to about 31,200 yearly passengers. For Condor, a 767 aircraft – 289 passengers – flying twice weekly for 10 weeks, could produce an additional 4,500, according to the airport.
Kelly J. Fredericks, CEO and president of Green, however, said the new airline carriers – when paired with the quarter of a billion dollar project underway to improve airport safety and expand services – are positive signs, adding that the airport has been capturing more attention recently in the market.
“We’re investing in the future, and this is very much a part of it,” Fredericks said.
Of course, foreign-owned companies already play a significant role in the local economy.
• Citizens Financial Group Inc., (U.K.) currently being spun off by its parent company Royal Bank of Scotland PLC, employs more than 5,000 Rhode Islanders.
• Schneider Electric (France) and GTECH (Italy), each employ more than 1,000 locally.
• Another 2,400 are collectively employed by National Grid (London), Santander Bank (Spain) and Toray Plastics (America) Inc. (Tokyo).
• Dublin-based food manufacturer Greencore USA plans to employ nearly 400 people at a new facility in the Quonset Business Park.
GTECH Chairman Donald R. Sweitzer and Fredericks accompanied former Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee and members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation on a trade mission trip to Europe last year to try and entice more foreign-owned companies to come to the Ocean State.
Fredericks, who met with airport officials from Shannon Airport Authority in Ireland, said that although nothing is concrete right now, the two groups continue “to look at mutual beneficial opportunities.”
In December, a departing Chafee left the fruits of his mission in the form of five new, foreign-owned companies looking to come to the state: three from Italy (Euranet, Galivm Antica Taberna, Reios SRL), one from Ireland (Monaghan Brothers) and another from the United Kingdom (Score).
Where talks with those businesses stand is unclear. Commerce Corp. spokeswoman Melissa Czerwein said the agency continues to work with the companies announced in December but she declined to disclose any specifics of the discussions.
Raimondo did issue a statement through a spokeswoman that she would “aggressively pursue any business – foreign or domestic – that will invest and create middle-class jobs in Rhode Island.”
So it was left to Sweitzer, talking from London where he was attending an international gaming conference, to help explain foreign firms’ potential interest in the Ocean State.
He says there are a lot of reasons why a foreign-owned company should be interested in Rhode Island, including its proximity between New York and Boston, a highly educated workforce and most importantly – its size.
“As a businessman operating in this state, I emphasize that size is our advantage,” Sweitzer said. “You can’t go into [many] states and meet with the governor, [legislative leaders] and the mayor of its biggest city and do it all in one day.”
Sweitzer said he’s spoken with Raimondo about continuing the effort of bringing foreign businesses to the state, adding that he doesn’t think the ball will be dropped with the changeover in administration.
He said foreign-owned businesses are one piece of the puzzle in solving Rhode Island’s economic woes.
“It’s part of the mosaic,” Sweitzer said. •