CORNING LOOKING FOR PLANT SITE IN SOUTHEAST

Corning Inc. is combing the Southeast, including NorthCarolina, for a site to build a $100 million optical fibermanufacturing plant.

The Corning, N.Y.-based company says it needs the plant, itssecond, to meet growing world demand and strengthen its position asthe top supplier of optical fiber worldwide.

Corning also is spending $250 million to expand its existingplant in Wilmington, N.C., the largest of its kind in the world.

Neither Corning nor local officials would confirm whetherCorning is considering sites in the Charlotte area. But economicdevelopment sources said the company may be looking in CabarrusCounty.

Maurice Ewing, president of Cabarrus County EconomicDevelopment, would not say whether Corning has been looking there."All I can tell you is that I'm aware that the company is looking,"he said.

Cabarrus County recently adopted a series of incentives to spurdevelopment, including hefty tax rebates for companies that expandor construct new plants of at least $5 million in taxable value.

Corning spokesman David Lanzillo declined to discuss where thecompany is looking but said, "Corning has had a long and successfulhistory with North Carolina."

Lanzillo said Corning is eager to find a site and could make anannouncement within a month. The company wants to beginconstruction in early 1997 and hopes the new plant will beproducing fiber by the second quarter of 1999.

Lanzillo also declined to say how many workers the plant wouldemploy or how large it would be.

Besides Wilmington, Corning also has ties to Winston-Salem andHickory, where Siecor, its joint venture with Siemens, makesfiber-optic cable.

Catawba County, which promotes itself as "North Carolina'sTeleCOM Valley," is also home to other communications cablemanufacturers, including Alcatel and CommScope. But economicdevelopment officials there said they have not been approached byCorning.

Optical fiber is the key component of the cable needed fortelephone systems, the Internet and other high-speed datacommunications networks and cable television. The hair-thin glassfiber is faster and has a higher capacity than conventional coppercable.

Supplies of optical fiber have been tight over the past year ascompanies and governments around the world seek to meet consumerdemand for bigger and faster communications networks.