SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) -- Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover was scheduled to leave Monday for China, where he hopes to promote northwestern Louisiana as a site for business development while encouraging a Chinese company to keep a Hummer manufacturing plant in Shreveport.
General Motors signed a deal last week to sell the Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corp. The agreement awaits approval from the U.S. and Chinese governments.
"We hope to come back with a full list of individuals from China that we can call upon as we look to complete the Hummer transaction," Glover said Sunday. "We will certainly be looking to connect with companies, groups, individuals who may have some interest in Shreveport from a business standpoint."
The consumer version of the Hummmer H3 and H3T pickup are assembled at the GM plant in Shreveport. But production at the plant is currently slated to end no later than June 2012
Glover plans to join nine other U.S. mayors at a three-day economic development and industrialization meeting in China. He'll follow up the China trip with a two-day visit to Washington.
The Chinese government is footing the bill for Glover and his wife, Veronica. Government officials initially reached out to Glover via e-mail, he said.
Glover said he plans to promote Shreveport's locally trained car-building workforce and to provide examples of other environmentally friendly businesses in the city, including the Pratt Industries paper-recycling facility at the Port of Shreveport-Bossier.
Glover's trip also follows recent business-related visits to China by fellow Louisiana mayors Melvin "Kip" Holden, of Baton Rouge, and Ray Nagin, of New Orleans.