COVINGTON—Politicians and business leaders celebrated the groundbreaking of the $1 billion Baxter International pharmaceutical plant on Wednesday with high hopes for what it could do for the state's biosciences industry.
Construction workers will soon be piecing together the massive plant, which is expected to provide about 1,500 jobs by 2018. State officials say they hope the plant, which will make medical supplies and therapies from plasma, could be a magnet for other biosciences industries.
Georgia landed Baxter in April over rivals including North Carolina after pursuing the company for nearly four years. State and local officials offered the company a package of up to $210 million in economic development incentives, including a $14 million training facility for workers in the industry.
"Some have said that we would never break through because there are too many people in front of us," said Gov. Nathan Deal of the state's strategy of recruiting bioscience companies. "You could not have better evidence that we have broken that barrier today."
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