National Center for Computational Sciences

The announcement Tuesday that Volkswagen Group of America Inc. will build an automobile manufacturing plant in Chattanooga was greeted enthusiastically 112 miles away in Knoxville by those who say East Tennessee and the entire state stand to benefit from the plant’s spin-off economic activity.

Bill Fox, director of the University of Tennessee’s Center for Business and Economic Research, said the plant should have a huge impact on Tennessee’s economy, especially within a few hundred miles of its location. The facility, which Volkswagen expects will employ about 2,000 workers, will create many other jobs throughout the state, Fox predicts.

“This will produce more than 10,000 jobs in Tennessee, many of which will be in East Tennessee,” he said.

It will be a boon for area automotive suppliers as they do business with Volkswagen.

“Suppliers making everything from glass to tires to parts to you-name-it will be needed,” Fox said.

Volkswagen likely will draw from suppliers within about a 300-mile radius of Chattanooga, “and that certainly includes us,” Fox said, noting that the plant likely will attract more automotive industry suppliers to the region as well as companies unrelated to the industry.

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