AUBURN — Pioneer Plastics Corp. will add 140 jobs at the company’s Maine plant as it moves its South Carolina operations to Auburn.

The company plans to invest more than $1.7 million during the next two years, according to a news release from the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development on Monday.

“Maine is a terrific place to do business and we are very pleased to grow our operations and, more importantly, add talent to our already strong team at our Auburn plant,” Al Kabus, Panolam’s president and CEO, said in the DECD’s statement. “Our new investment in Maine means that our Auburn facility will remain competitive and well-positioned for long-term growth.”

The company, a subsidiary of Panolam Industries International, makes high-pressure decorative laminates for kitchen counters and tabletops. Panolam has owned the Auburn company since 1999.

Panolam specializes in making a broad range of high-pressure laminates, thermo-fused laminates, fiberglass-reinforced laminates and other specialty products under the Panolam, Nevamar, Pionite, Pluswood and Conolite brand names.

The company announced last week it was closing its 230-employee plant in Hampton, S.C., and promised to give employees there an opportunity to relocate to one of the company’s six other manufacturing sites or five distribution sites.

Doug Ray, spokesman for the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, said he did not know how many of the new jobs in Auburn would go to former Panolam employees.

“They are very excited about attracting new talent here and hiring people here from Maine,” Ray said. “There are going to be many opportunities to hire Maine people to these jobs.”

The state has agreed to give the company an incentive package to help move the jobs to Maine. Gov. Paul LePage said it shows that Maine’s economy is on the upswing.

“Now, instead of seeing jobs move out of state, quality jobs are being moved to Maine from elsewhere,” LePage said in the news release. “Through our reforms, we are earning a better reputation as a business-friendly state that welcomes and appreciates private investment. That’s what Maine people want and expect from their elected leaders: a government that works with — not against — the private sector to create good-paying jobs.”

Ray said the company qualified for Pine Tree Zone economic incentives. That will mean a 100 percent credit on corporate income taxes on new investments at the site for the first five years and a 50 percent credit for the next five. The company also gets a sales tax exemption on business equipment purchased for the exemption, as well as an 80 percent withholding reimbursement for the first five people who are hired.

“These are clearly tied to the new business activity and how many hires they actually make,” Ray said.

staylor@sunjournal.com

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