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Pritzker traveling to Tokyo in two days to recruit businesses (Updated)

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* Gov. JB Pritzker dropped this nugget into his Peoria Q and A today…

[The] day after tomorrow, I’m leaving for Tokyo to talk to Japanese companies about coming to the state of Illinois.

More in a bit.

…Adding… Here’s the list of those headed to Japan…

…Adding… More from the Q and A…

Maybe some of you have noticed that we’ve made a lot of progress over the last couple of years attracting companies to the state of Illinois, new businesses. I’ve talked a lot about clean energy businesses and electric vehicle business, but there’s a whole lot more. … (W)e’ve had a lot of conversations with companies, some of them in the state of Illinois, expanding and wanting to come to Peoria. Some of them from other parts of the country, even other parts of the world, who want to come to Peoria, and some in Peoria who want to expand and don’t know whether they should do it in Peoria or maybe somewhere else. So, you know, our job is to put as many businesses and create as many jobs as we can in Peoria. And so I feel really good about the prospects for our state. […]

I had people tell me when we started this effort a few years ago to start to really promote the state to businesses that they had not heard from the state of Illinois or the governor of the state of Illinois since Jim Thompson was governor. That’s 40 years. So I mean, that’s in a way, that’s embarrassing to admit about our state, but it also says we must be doing something right, because everybody’s recognizing it now, and they want to talk to us, and they want to come here. So I feel good about the prospects for us bringing businesses to the city of Peoria and to the surrounding community, the county and the region here.

…Adding… He really went hard on this topic…

So the first thing is, you’ve got to let everybody know you’re here, and what it is you have to offer, right?

And I’ll tell you what the number one thing we have. We’ve got a lot of things to offer. We could talk about a lot of things, and I do, but the number one thing we have is we have the workforce and the workforce training and the education. And it’s impressive when you put us up against other states. And we have some of the best talent in the nation for everything from manufacturing to service industry, scientists, engineers, I mean, we really have it all here. And we just haven’t told everybody about all of it, and when I talk about it, because, and I feel like it’s a campaign, you know, when I talk about it and promote the state of Illinois, people are surprised when we have the third largest community college system in the entire nation. Very few people know about that, right? We have 48 community colleges, and we’ve been. Funding them for the last few years, finally, and and we also have some of the best universities in the entire world, in Illinois and in the public ones. Anyway, we’ve been funding for the last few years, and so now what you’re seeing is an increase in enrollment. You know, new freshmen classes are bigger than they’ve been in a decade or more, and community colleges now can offer tuition-free opportunities for people to get a certificate or a degree to get the kind of, you know, training that they need. So that’s number one thing that I say, [applause] yeah, thank you.

And then we have lots of other things. I’ll just point out that we have the third most reliable energy grid in the entire country. Now, maybe that sounds uninteresting to you, but for a lot of businesses, right, making sure that they have a continuous source of electricity that doesn’t go out. You remember a couple years ago when Texas, I mean, the lights went out for a couple of weeks. Okay? Because their grid is no good. Ours is the third most reliable. Oh, by the way, the other two most reliable ahead of us are small states where it’s pretty easy to do. We’re the largest. I mean, we are in the top 10 most populous states. We’re the ones that have the most reliable electric grid.

And then clean energy. Which companies, you’d be surprised, they show up at our door. It’s like the first, second or third question they ask: ‘Have you got the electricity? But we want clean energy. We want to know that we’re getting it from clean sources.’ And because of the the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act that we passed a couple years ago here in Illinois, we’ve doubled the amount of renewable energy that we’re providing just since 2021 when this went into effect. And I don’t want to promise too much, but I think over the next year, you’re going to see numbers that show that we will have tripled it over the next 12 months. So I meant since we started, not from today. We’re not going to triple it from today, but, more clean energy, solar, wind, and then we’ve got really terrific, you know, we’re the largest state for nuclear, and the reason that’s so important is it’s base load. Very important. More than 50% of our electricity in the state of Illinois comes from nuclear and so we’re able to build. On top of that for states that are running out of electricity. It’s going to take us, it’ll be a long time since we were ’til we run out, though we need to keep building out our distribution and our production.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 2:52 pm

Comments

cannot wait for the “Caption?” contest from the reception by the current Ambassador to Japan

Comment by 21st State Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 2:56 pm
The Governor could not wait until February to visit Japan, so he would have to delay his budget address too?

Comment by Three Dimensional Checkers Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 3:15 pm
My guess is a deal has been done and the visit is a formality or he would have stayed on the campaign trail. This does add a little drama to it and shows he’s still doing his job.

Comment by levivotedforjudy Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 3:46 pm
That is how governors should talk about their states.

Comment by Excessively Rabid Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 4:14 pm
I started under Big Jim and retired under JB. The Guv is right. Big Jim was the last Governor who really cared about economic development, and I would add,before JB, he was the last Guv who really loved this State from Chicago to Cairo.

Comment by DCCA OldTimer Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 4:26 pm
Great
Been long time since a real gubernatorial mission

Comment by halving_fun Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 4:26 pm
Is there anyone from Illinois who ISN’T going to Japan on this trip?

Comment by Treefiddy Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 4:37 pm
Did not see anyone from Com Ed

Comment by DuPage Saint Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 4:44 pm
===Did not see anyone from Com Ed•===

Gil Quiniones, President and CEO of ComEd

Comment by d Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 4:47 pm
==Did not see anyone from Com Ed==

• Gil Quiniones, President and CEO of ComEd

Comment by curtis Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 4:47 pm
I know Chicago has Osaka, but do any other IL cities have sister cities in Japan?

Comment by ChrisB Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 5:19 pm
Respectfully that’s too many people

Comment by Beep booop Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 5:28 pm
===who ISN’T going to Japan===

Me.

lol

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 5:36 pm
Best Illinois Governor in my time here (arrived mid-Thompson). Honest & hasn’t tried to weasel out of pension payments. Wasn’t here for Ogilvie, but he’s that good, or better. In fact, nationally, as good as the 2010-2018 version of Jerry Brown.

Comment by Anyone Remember Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 6:05 pm
Yes, Springfield’s Japanese sister city is Ashikaga.

Comment by This is ridiculous Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 6:40 pm
That’s a lot of people. We paying for all of them to go? No wonder the state is broke.

Comment by Tim Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 6:52 pm
Decatur’s Japanese sister city is Tokorozawa, commemorated by Lake Tokorozawa in the western part of Decatur.

Comment by Tim2 Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 7:38 pm
Who’s paying for this?

Comment by Ryder Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 9:08 pm
Kind of interesting folks are concerned about how much it’s going to cost; when 95% of the economic opportunities are outside of this very state

Besides, this has been done before, the corporations pay for themselves, the states just paying for its staff, State Police, meeting space, hors d’oeuvres.

If they get a couple billion in investments

Let’s gooooooooo

Comment by halving_fun Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 9:29 pm
= the states just paying for its staff, State Police, meeting space, hors d’oeuvres.=

“Just” is doing a ton of heavy lifting in this sentence

Comment by Beep booop Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 11:18 pm
This trip would be breaking news if it was organized by Tiffany Henyard…

Comment by Rel Thursday, Oct 3, 24 @ 11:34 pm
- This trip would be breaking news if it was organized by Tiffany Henyard… -

Yeah, because she isn’t the governor of a large state with the 5th largest GDP in the country.

Comment by Excitable Boy Friday, Oct 4, 24 @ 6:57 am
Who’s paying for all this?

Comment by Nope. Friday, Oct 4, 24 @ 7:06 am
==Who’s paying for all this?==
==Who’s paying for this?==
==That’s a lot of people. We paying for all of them to go? No wonder the state is broke.=

A whole lot of people who’ve gone all-in on the idea of “we need to run this state like a business” are suddenly completely unfamiliar with the maxim “you have to spend money to make money.”

Comment by Roadrager Friday, Oct 4, 24 @ 10:14 am
The trip will cost 100k to 200k
Caveats are if JB wants special things that he pays for
And this administration doesn’t do anything to utilize funds that weren’t used in other administrations, such a small business funds

Comment by halving_fun Friday, Oct 4, 24 @ 12:08 pm
Too bad GOPies did not get asked — maybe Denzler is their rep.

Comment by Annonin' Friday, Oct 4, 24 @ 12:51 pm