Wilson: Business climate, not incentives, draw companies to Georgia

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(The Center Square) – Georgia has landed a $4 billion Audi plant that will bring up to 4,500 jobs to middle Georgia, an announcement made just weeks after the department announced expansion plans of four companies. 

What draws these companies to the state and keeps them is not upfront cash incentives, but the state's business climate, Georgia Economic Development Commissioner Pat Wilson told The Center Square in an interview. 

When reporters asked at a news conference about incentives, Gov. Brian Kemp said the state was consistent with what it had done on other projects. 

"Unlike other states, we can't just throw cash at projects, which I think is good for the taxpayers," the governor said. "The companies will earn these incentives. You know, after they build the plant and hire workers, they'll start getting the tax credits and other things."

Georgia law, Article III, Section IV, Paragraph IV of the Georgia Constitution, prohibits giving private companies taxpayer dollars unless there is a clear return or advantage, Wilson said.

"And that's why you see the majority of Georgia's tax incentives are tax credits," Wilson said. "That means the company has to create something in order to receive something. And so as long as you're creating jobs, then you're going to be able to realize an incentive."

Incentives are generally not the deciding factor, Wilson said.

"It is a fact that if you're a company that has to have cash in order to make the decision, that's probably not a company you are going to want in your community because we want to make sure that we are as risk-averse as possible with the taxpayer dollar," Wilson said. "That is our goal first and foremost, that the companies that we're working with, that we know they are going to be a long-term partner to our communities."

So Georgia focuses on what Wilson calls "solutions," investing in things like water and sewer infrastructure and site preparedness. 

"If you can prove that Georgia can do it faster than anybody else, we may not be giving the largest incentive package, but at the end of the day we are saving the company a tremendous amount of money in speed to market," Wilson said. 

The nuts and bolts of the deals that lure companies to Georgia are not always revealed in the initial stages. Good Jobs First tracks subsidies given to manufacturers and data centers. 

In the case of Georgia's data center tax breaks only, the state could lose nearly $3 billion in tax revenue in fiscal year 2027, according to a report by Anthony Elmo of Good Jobs First. 

"We truly believe that people should know what the trade-offs are because local legislators, city officials and county officials are making trade-offs, and we should know what we're trading," Elmo said in an interview with The Center Square. 

In addition to potential incentives, the economic development department spends thousands of dollars each year on travel. 

Numbers from fiscal year 2026, which began on July 1, 2025 and ended on June 30, 2026, are not available. Open Georgia shows that in fiscal year 2025, Kemp's travel expenses were $56,506.12. Wilson's expenses were $117,720.97. The website did not show what counted as domestic travel and what counted as international travel.

When asked what he would say to the taxpayer questioning the money spent on economic development, Wilson pointed to the need to build relationships.

"I want the community that is ultimately going to be in this long-term relationship to travel to go see the company, where they are, see how they manufacture, see how they treat their people, see the skills level of the jobs, see their impact in the community." Wilson said, "Because ultimately, we want them to come back and tell that story too, that this is going to be a great employer for us because we saw how they treat their people there."

"The travel matters because you really need to get to know the people," he said.

In addition to the Audi plant, companies invested $1.45 billion and pledged 1,175 new jobs in October.

The announcements come after a record year for economic development, according to the department and Gov. Brian Kemp. From July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026, companies invested $35.2 billion and created 25,300 jobs, they said. Georgia is also the top state to do business for the 13th year in a row, according to Area Development Magazine.

Four of the companies that announced expansions in the past six weeks have been in the state for years and have established relationships with officials. 

Mitsubishi Power, which is adding 220 new jobs in Chatham County and investing $490 million, has called Georgia a "critical hub" since 2010. 

Blue Bird Corporation, a school bus manufacturer, is adding 375 new jobs in Peach County and making a $300 million investment. The company has 100-year-old roots in Georgia. 

Hyundai is adding 320 new jobs and investing $560 million at its West Point facility. The company began production there in 2009. 

In late September, Italian tire maker Pirelli announced 1,000 new jobs and a $1.2 billion investment to expand its Floyd County location. The company opened its first plant there in 2002.

Not all economic pitches are successful. If the state had not failed to land a facility in Pooler, Georgia, the Audi deal may not have happened. 

The Daimler-Chrysler deal seemed like a sure thing in 2002, with former Gov. Roy Barnes even taking photos published in local newspapers with the vans that would have been manufactured. 

It wasn't. And it left the state with a large, empty megasite. 

The megasite didn't stay empty. Mitsubishi built its plant there. Amazon purchased some of the land and created 1,000 jobs, Wilson said.

That deal led to the purchase of a megasite in Bryan County, where Hyundai added a plant, and the megasite in Peach County, where Audi will locate. 

"This is a great example of what can happen when something falls through that we are able to turn that into even more opportunity in Georgia," Wilson said. "And if you look at the site now with Mitsubishi expanding, we have Amazon and you have another project that's located on that site, too, we're going to have as many if not more jobs on that site the Daimler promised many years ago."

The Audi project was two years in the making and started with a cold call suggested by Gov. Brian Kemp, who read an article that Audi was considering a U.S. plant. Wilson and Kemp met with Audi in Munich. 

"And so again, you go back to the face-to-face matter, relationships matter and being the first state to go talk to them, I think, was important, too," Wilson said. "I was able to keep a direct relationship with the company because we had that meeting two years ago. And so it really turned out that it was a long project, but it is amazing, really amazing, to see it get over the finish line because of ultimately what it's going to mean to middle Georgia."

Audi expects to break ground in 2027 and begin producing 200,000 units annually in 2031, according to company and state officials. 

“We have much greater ambitions for Audi in America, and Georgia will play a central role in making them a reality," said Gernot Döllner, CEO and chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG in a statement. "With its strong business environment, skilled workforce, and shared ambition, the state is an ideal partner for Audi."