The state’s economic development director says two announcements are coming soon about a “big project” for Iowa. Iowa Economic Development Authority director Debi Durham says the groundwork for the deal she expects to be announced this Friday was laid a year ago during a trade trip she and the governor made to Europe. “And there was one that we worked on in New York a year ago that’s a really large announcement,” Durham says. “…The deal’s done, it’s just a matter of whether the board of directors wants it announced.”

Durham made her comments during a public hearing in the governor’s office this week. Neither Governor Branstad or Durham are revealing which companies will be making these expansions, but Durham says they show trade missions do yield results.  “It takes a long time to close a deal, as you know,” Durham told the governor this week, “but I tell you what, we win a lot more than we lose.”

This afternoon (Thursday) Durham and other officials from the Iowa Partnership for Economic Progress will release the results of an 18-month-long study of Iowa’s economic development efforts.

(Radio Iowa)