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Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is departing Wednesday on a European trade mission and will return next week, Sanders spokeswoman Alexa Henning said late Tuesday afternoon.
Sanders and the Arkansas team will meet with executives in the aerospace and defense industry from companies including Lockheed Martin, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Dassault Falcon, Ducommun, Raytheon, Triumph, and others in Paris, France and Cologne, Germany, according to the governor’s office.
“I’m honored to announce that I will be representing Arkansas on my first overseas trade mission to Europe,” Sanders said in a written statement.
“Alongside Commerce Secretary Hugh McDonald and Arkansas Economic Development Commission Executive Director Clint O’Neal, I’ll meet with American, British, French, and German business executives to make the case for investing in Arkansas and bringing good-paying jobs to our state,” she said.
Henning said Sanders, McDonald and O’Neal will be joined on the trip by staff from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, the governor’s Chief of Staff Gretchen Conger and Deputy Chiefs of Staff Judd Deere and Kelly Eichler
Asked about the cost of the trip to the state and/or the Arkansas Economic Development Foundation, Henning said “there are quite a few expenses that we won’t have calculated until after the trip.
“Typically, we provide a full summary at the conclusion of the trip,” she said.
The Arkansas Economic Development Foundation is a privately financed non-profit group.
At the Paris Air Show, Sanders said she will convene with leaders in the aerospace industry to discuss Arkansas’ growing contributions to America’s national security and thriving defense industry.
Established in 1909, the air show has become the largest aerospace event in the world. Discussions don’t usually result in immediate announcements and sometimes take years to bear fruit.
Sanders is proud to support the Arkansas-based companies co-exhibiting at the Arkansas booth at the 2023 Paris Air Show, including Galley Support Innovations (GSI), AirReady MRO, Blue Gold by Modern Chemical, ORC, Aviation Repair Technologies, and Mundo-Tech, according to the governor’s office.
The governor said her administration “is lowering taxes, improving schools, and making our streets safer to help Arkansas become the most business-friendly state in the nation.”
“It’s time for the whole world to learn what Arkansans already know: there’s never been a better time to invest in the Natural State and call it home,” Sanders said.
Asked how often Sanders plans to go overseas on economic development trips and whether she has other trips planned, Henning said “No future scheduled trips at this time.”
Her predecessor, Republican Asa Hutchinson, also took his first overseas economic development trip as governor to Europe in June 2015 and attended the Paris Air Show, and went to Germany to meet with business leaders, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette archives.
During the Paris Air Show in June 2019, Lockheed Martin and Hutchinson announced an investment of $142 million at its Camden site that would create more than 300 jobs.
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