Sanford meets in Japan with Toyota, Honda

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A top executive at Toyota Motor Corp. heard about the existing local supplier base and meetings were held with officials of Honda Motor Co. Ltd., other firms already with a state presence, and confidential prospects, Faith said in a conference call.

The chairman of Fuji Photo Film told attendees at the Southeast U.S./Japan Association meeting in Osaka of the company's success in the Upstate, which prompted Sanford to say jokingly, "Bob Faith and I need to get out of the way and let him handle all the recruitment efforts in Japan."

The week in Japan is the second leg of more than two weeks in Asia, a stint unparalleled in recent state history for the governor and his chief industry recruiter, Sanford said.

It's one part of a three-pronged effort to develop business and jobs in the state and Faith said he hopes to turn up tangible local investments as a direct result of the trip in coming months.

Two Asian contracts for local goods were sealed on the trade mission, one for a new textile operation in Gaffney that will create 130 jobs and another for orders of railroad maintenance equipment from Columbia-based Harsco Track Technologies.

"It would help a whole lot not to be swimming upstream" economically, Sanford said. "You have to deal with the reality that you're given."

He's focusing "fairly laser-like," he said, on luring capital.

"It is the locomotive that runs the rest of the train — to pay for education, to pay for health care, to pay for the criminal justice system," he said.

Part of luring capital and growing small businesses at home will be to push for an income tax cut, Sanford said.

"You'll see a lot more work on that front, very specifically finding a different way to skin the income tax equation we tried to skin last year," he said.