Global markets, local benefits

You can lament economic globalization's drawbacks. You can ignore its benefits. But you can't stop it.

That irreversible, ongoing transformation into a one-world marketplace hit home again, in a lucrative way, with the news that Air India is expected to buy the first 787 Dreamliner jet from the new Boeing plant in North Charleston.

The Post and Courier's Business Review "Grapevine" column reported that Boeing coup Monday, citing a flightglobal.com story that projected an early 2012 date for the big-event delivery of the big airliner. Air India's order is for 27 Dreamliners in a contract worth more than $11 billion.

That's great news for Boeing -- and our community, state and nation. India's air-travel business, like its overall economy, is rapidly expanding

Boeing also struck deals worth $10 billion at this week's Farnborough (England) International Airshow, including orders for three 787s to Royal Jordanian, 30 of its 777s to Dubai-based Emirates Airlines, 12 of its 737s to Ireland-based Avalon and 15 more 737s to Norwegian Air.

Additional glad global-economy tidings for our state came Thursday when Gov. Mark Sanford, along with ZF Group officials in Friedrichshafen, Germany, announced that company's intention to build a $350 million Laurens County plant that will manufacture fuel-efficient automatic transmissions. ZF Group, which already has a presence in South Carolina, plans to start construction on the new facility early next year -- and plans to open it in 2015 with a workforce of 900.

Nearly two decades ago, our state's economy got an unprecedented and continuing lift from another German company as BMW built a major manufacturing facility in Greer. Today, we're getting another major, and sure to be lasting, lift from the new Boeing Dreamliner plant.

So stop imagining that globalization is a bad trend -- or that it can be reversed. The Lowcountry, South Carolina and the U.S. can thrive in the planet-wide economic competition.