May 26 - Eric Torbenson The Dallas Morning News



Dallas has lured one of China's top wind turbine manufacturers to the Uptown area and a production facility somewhere in the city limits is very likely to follow, officials said Tuesday.

Guangdong Ming Yang Wind Power Industry Group Co. Ltd. plans to put four people here to serve as the starting point for its North American and Latin American operations and will work with city of Dallas staff to find a site to build turbines that harness wind power.

The company's production plants in China typically employ 200 to 400 workers, managing director Wang Song said through an interpreter.

"We did our homework -- we knew that Texas makes the biggest use of wind power in the U.S. and that Dallas was the biggest city near the wind corridor," Wang said.

 The company had four employees in 2006; today, it has 2,000 and is China's largest privately held wind turbine maker, its officials said at a press conference Tuesday. The Dallas office will be Ming Yang's first location outside China.

Dallas City Council member Ron Natinsky signed a memorandum of understanding with Wang that outlines a framework of cooperation that could lead to a new plant starting construction in as little as a year.

"I'm unabashedly confident that it will be here," he said, noting that the agreement specifically says the plant goes within Dallas and not in the suburbs. The struggling inland port project in southern Dallas could be a candidate for such a facility.

Natinsky said incentives could play a role in getting the manufacturing facility built in Dallas, as they're often part of these kinds of discussions. Ming Yang approached Dallas leaders last year about potentially coming here and moved quickly to reach the agreement with economic development officials.

Wang credited Natinsky's strong sales pitch for Dallas as helping influence the decision. Natinsky presented Wang with a book about how dreams come true in Dallas; Wang jokingly presented Natinsky with Jeffrey Zhao, who will be president of Ming Yang's North American and Latin American operations.

The announcement came as a massive wind power meeting wraps up at the Dallas Convention Center, where Ming Yang had one of the larger display booths among Chinese companies.

Texas leads the country in wind power generation and is expanding its production through a Competitive Renewable Energy Zone program run by regulators that will bring wind power from West Texas to more populated areas.

(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services  To subscribe or visit go to:  www.mcclatchy.com/