Business Blog

Oregon-based plywood panel producer Natron Wood Products is moving into a vacant 250,000 square-foot building in Louisville and will create 200 new jobs as it begins operations. The plant represents a $10 million investment by Natron Wood Products, Gov. Phil Bryant said Monday at an official announcement of the plant in Louisville. Natron Wood’s Winston [...]

GE Aviation officially opened its second aviation composites factory in Mississippi Tuesday, putting into operation its new 340,000-square-foot facility in South Mississippi’s Ellisville. The plant joins a composite and jet fans plant in Northwest Mississippi. The new plant is to be known as GE Aviation’s Ellisville Composites and will add around 250 jobs, company officials [...]

A 150-year-old lumber company in west Georgia has a new owner, but the business will keep its name — W.T. Harvey Lumber Co. The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports (http://bit.ly/10FCLPr) that Natchez.-based Central Network Retail Group has completed the purchase of the Columbus lumber company out of bankruptcy. With the Harvey Lumber acquisition, CNRG will operate 41 [...]

The Mississippi Development Authority says GE Aviation will officially open for business in Mississippi next week. The aviation giant will open its new Ellisville facility at 135 Technology Boulevard on Tuesday at 11:00 AM. The 340,000-square-foot facility will manufacture new aviation composite components. GE Aviation has committed to hiring 250 employees and investing more than $50 [...]

Mississippi is among 37 states vying to be one of six sites selected by the Federal Aviation Administration for testing of Unmanned Aircraft Systems. The testing is a prelude to integrating the remotely controlled aircraft into the nation’s general aviation system. If testing proves successful, the next step will be wide commercial use of the [...]

The office of Sen. Thad Cochran has released a statement announcing South Korea’s decision to supply its fighter aircraft with Mississippi-built radar systems. The announcement comes as international tensions increase between U.S.-backed South Korea and an increasingly militant neighboring North Korea and its leader Kim Jon-Un. The Republic of Korea Air Force reportedly selected the [...]

Shipbuilders at Huntington Ingalls Industries division in Gulfport have turned an inverted hangar to an upright position — or ship-shape — a key step in the construction of the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer Michael Monsoor. The step is a significant milestone in the construction of the composite hangar on the second destroyer of this type [...]

Nearly 100 Mississippi businesses showcased their products and services Thursday at the Mississippi Business Journal’s Business & Technology EXPO, the state’s largest business-to-business networking event. Visitors filled the exhibition aisles at the Mississippi Trade Mart throughout the daylong EXPO which reached its 30-year milestone this year with a 20 percent increase in exhibitors over last [...]

Air travelers accustomed to catching Silver Airways flights out of Hattiesburg, Meridian, Greenville and Tupelo may soon have to rethink their travel plans. As with a series of other disruptions occurring at airports large and small around the country, the culprit is the federal budget sequester, a series of across-the-board cuts brought about by the [...]

Catfish producers in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South notched a key victory last week with a Commerce Department decision to put duties on frozen catfish fillets exported from Vietnam. The Commerce Department ruling marks a reversal of several years of refusing to place tariffs on government-subsidized Vietnamese pangasius catfish imported to the United States [...]