Chippewa Falls (WQOW) - An expansion project in Chippewa Falls could help open the door to more business overseas.
On Friday, Governor Scott Walker was in Chippewa falls for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new CN Intermodal Terminal. Semi trailers are loaded onto railcars at the terminal and taken to the west coast where they're shipped to Asia. The new terminal will provide the area with new opportunities to export grain and manufactured goods.
"When you think of grain commodities, corn and soybeans have been a driving force of our exports going up, particularly Ag based exports," says Gov. Scott Walker, (R) Wisconsin. "To have a transfer station like this where they can take from large scale bulk trailers and transfer it over to a fully loaded export container, boy that is a real advantage competitively in a global market place."
When CN was asked how many jobs would be created, the company said if jobs are added, most would come from those who use the rail to ship goods.
Job creation has been the number one goal for Governor Walker. The U.S. added 243,000 jobs in January, far more than what was expected. The jobless rate is now at eight-point-three percent, it's lowest in three years. In Wisconsin, we've lost jobs for the past several months. On Friday, the governor was asked about the national jobs report and why Wisconsin is lagging behind.
"Good sign overall, we're more dependent on manufacturing than any state in the country, it's about 20 percent of our economy or employment base is dependent on manufacturing," says Walker. "In particular, we're heavily dependent on exports to Europe and with in the last five or six months with Greece and others in the EU, there's been some real challenges there, so hopefully as that starts to be settling a little bit that will open the door to a greater export base and that'll help our manufacturing in Wisconsin."
