AAPL Apple Inc

By Valerie Bauerlein 

Foxconn Technology Group Chairman Terry Gou is heading to Wisconsin Thursday, where the Apple Inc. supplier is building a factory, a day after meeting with President Trump at the White House.

Foxconn confirmed in a statement that Mr. Gou met with Mr. Trump, saying the two "discussed the latest updates and the positive progress of the Wisconn Valley Science and Technology Park project among other matters."

The Taiwanese manufacturing giant is lagging behind its projections for the Wisconsin liquid-crystal display factory, where it pledged two years ago to invest $10 billion and hire 13,000 people by 2032.

The Foxconn project is one of the biggest U.S. public-incentive deals ever offered to a foreign company, a more than $4 billion package of state and local tax breaks and infrastructure investment.

Foxconn had spent only $99 million, 1% of its pledged investment, as of the end of the December, according to its latest state filings. The company had fewer than 200 employees, though it projected having as many as 2,080 in-state employees by the end of 2019, state filings show.

President Trump has been involved with the Wisconsin project since its inception, and said he was the one who advised Mr. Gou to build in rural southeastern Wisconsin. At last year's groundbreaking, President Trump touted the plant as a pillar of his plan to bring advanced-manufacturing jobs to the industrial Midwest and described Chairman Gou as "one of the most successful businessmen in the world, very few people even close."

But President Trump didn't mention Foxconn in a Saturday night rally in Green Bay, a rare omission for a project he has described as "the eighth wonder of the world."

The White House didn't respond to a request for comment.

As he arrived for his White House visit, Mr. Gou wore a baseball cap decorated with the Taiwanese and American flags, and presented a cap like it to President Trump, according to Taiwan's official Central News Agency. On his official Facebook page, Mr. Gou posted photos of himself standing outside the White House and saluting while standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Mr. Gou, who recently announced his candidacy for president of Taiwan, also discussed his political future with President Trump, according to Taiwan's news agency.

The U.S., like most countries, doesn't officially recognize Taiwan, having switched diplomatic recognition to China four decades ago.

Mr. Gou was headed to Wisconsin on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter. His schedule there isn't yet clear.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who defeated Republican Scott Walker last fall, wasn't informed of or invited to the White House meeting, according to his spokeswoman. She didn't respond to a request for comment on whether the governor planned to meet with Mr. Gou in Wisconsin.

The governor said on April 23 that Foxconn is seeking changes in its contract with Wisconsin, which would award up to $2.85 billion in incentives if Foxconn meets employment and investment benchmarks. Mr. Evers asked the company to provide details on the changes soon "so that we can all view this project with as much relevant information as possible."

The local governments in Mount Pleasant, the factory site's location about 20 miles south of Milwaukee, have borrowed $350 million so far to clear and prepare a 1,200-acre site for Foxconn. The site is mostly barren, except for heavy equipment and a multipurpose building used as a site for staging construction equipment.

Foxconn said this week that it is picking up the construction pace after a monthslong winter break. Foxconn said it recently awarded $34 million in contracts for construction of utilities and roadways at the site. The company said it expects to begin "the next phases of construction...by summer 2019 with production expected to commence during the fourth quarter of 2020."

--Rebecca Ballhaus and Yoko Kubota contributed to this article.

Write to Valerie Bauerlein at valerie.bauerlein@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 02, 2019 11:26 ET (15:26 GMT)

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