Breaking a barrel of sake in honor of the groundbreaking for the Yorozu Automotive Mississippi plant at Ceres are, from left, Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, Yorozu Mississippi president Shoji Uemura, Yorozu president Akihiko Shido and Warren County Supervisor Bill Lauderdale.(The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[12/05/01]arm welcome Tuesday as Warren County welcomed the second tier-one plant to support assembly of Nissan trucks and vans near Canton.

Officials of the Japanese company, which is the parent company of Yorozu America and Yorozu Automotive Mississippi, were the guests of honor at the official groundbreaking for the Yorozu Automotive Mississippi plant at Ceres Research and Industrial Interplex at Flowers.

The plant will make suspension parts to be delivered to the Nissan line.

Yorozu follows CalsonicKansei Mississippi to Warren County. Ground was broken for Calsonic’s plant, also at the county-owned industrial park, in October.

Yorozu will build a 140,000-square-foot structure on 20 acres. When the plant achieves full operation in May 2003, about 120 people will be employed with a payroll of about $5 million.

The investment at Ceres will be about $16.5 million.

The company will have a second, smaller facility adjacent to

the Nissan plant about 40 miles away.

“It’s really a great day for Vicksburg-Warren County and the State of Mississippi,” said Jimmy Heidel, executive director of the Vicksburg Warren County Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development Foundation and the Warren County Port Commission.

Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, at his second industrial groundbreaking in Warren County in two months, said “I do love days like this days when we gather to celebrate good things that are happening in Mississippi.”

Akihiko Shido, president and chief executive officer for Yorozu Corp., said his company began looking for a site on which to build its Mississippi plant about the same time the Nissan plant was announced in the fall of 2000.

“We decided to establish our plant here because Vicksburg is conveniently located in the South and … to Canton,” he said.

He said the plant now under construction by Laws Construction of Jackson will be on the cutting edge of technology when it is complete.

Shido closed his brief remarks by thanking the public officials present.

Musgrove said it was particularly good to be celebrating expansion in Mississippi when many other parts of the nation are experiencing economic slow downs.

“The world is taking notice … of what Mississippi is doing for all of the right reasons,” Musgrove said. “They see Mississippi as a serious player in the world market … We believe it’s time people outside the borders of Mississippi realize we can compete any time, any where and with any one.”

Musgrove said he has told Nissan and all its suppliers he looks on their relationship with Mississippi as a partnership and their success is the state’s success.