Part of a wave of foreign investment that seems to be at least partially drawn by U.S. currency exchange rates, two of the bigger recent projects in Pennsylvania come from a Mexican food corporation and a Spanish wind energy company.
      In the Luzerne County town of Mountain Top, just outside Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Monterrey, Mexico-based Gruma Corp. will build a new tortilla manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution center in a Keystone Opportunity Zone for its Mission Foods subsidiary. The $33.9-million project in Crestwood Industrial Park is expected to bring at least 232 new jobs within the next three years. The plant will encompass 110,000 sq. ft. (10,219 sq. m.) when it gets up and running during the second quarter of 2005, and it will expand to 150,000 sq. ft. (13,935 sq. m.) by 2007.
      The Spanish wind energy corporation is creating nearly the identical number of jobs. Renewable energy and aeronautics company Gamesa, having established offices in Philadelphia earlier in 2004 with the promise of a manufacturing location to follow, made good on its pledge in January 2005 after looking at sites around the Commonwealth.
      A 194,000-sq.-ft. (18,023-sq.-m.) plant for the manufacture of wind turbine blades will soon lift off on 22 acres (hectares) at the South Park Industrial Complex in Ebensburg, located about 19 miles (30 km.) from Johnstown in Cambria County. Gamesa's first U.S. facility will create 236 permanent positions. But all told, Gamesa could create as many as 1,000 Pennsylvania jobs by 2010.
      Gamesa, headquartered in Vitoria, Spain, is unique in its narrow sector in that it both manufactures components and develops the wind farms that put those machines to use. Pennsylvania utilities are signed up for the purchase of 600 megawatts from Gamesa, and the company is also developing projects in Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Iowa, among other states. The company operates other U.S. offices out of Austin, Texas, and Minneapolis, Minn.
      Gamesa's combined Pennsylvania investments come to $40 million, with this latest plank helped along by a $9.3-million state incentive package.
      "Not only is this one of the most significant economic development announcements in decades for the Johnstown area," said Gov. Ed Rendell, "but it also represents a significant turnaround with Pennsylvania luring high-paying manufacturing jobs from overseas."