Business & Industry
A harbor dredged to the deepest depth on the East Coast, the only place on Earth where a 787 Dreamliner rolls off a final-assembly line, and the automaker Volvo's first-ever Western Hemisphere factory.
Port of Charleston (SC Ports Authority)
A four-year, roughly $580 million federal-and-state dredging project completed in December 2022 deepened Charleston Harbor to 52 feet, with the entrance channel at 54 feet — giving Charleston the deepest harbor on the U.S. East Coast and the ability to work the largest container ships in the world at any tide. SC Ports ranks as the 8th-largest container port in the country and supports an estimated 225,000 jobs statewide.
Boeing South Carolina
Boeing's North Charleston campus, which opened for limited production in 2011, became the company's only 787 Dreamliner final-assembly site in February 2021 when Boeing consolidated all 787 production there from its Everett, Washington plant. The site also builds fuselage sections and cabin components, with a second assembly line added in 2024 and a third planned for 2028.
Volvo Cars, Ridgeville (Berkeley County)
Announced in 2015, Volvo's Berkeley County plant is the automaker's first manufacturing facility anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. More than $1.2 billion has been invested across multiple expansion phases, and the plant builds the S60 sedan and XC90 SUV, with Polestar 3 electric-vehicle production also announced for the site.