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Byline: Charles Lunan
Jun. 8--MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- It's been a tough couple of years for manufacturing in Iredell County, but you won't find much evidence of that at NGK Ceramics USA Inc.
The Japanese-owned company has been a beehive of building since early last year, when it began a $58 million expansion aimed at extending its dominance in the emission control business into heavy trucks and buses. The company makes honeycombed ceramic substrates, or bricks, that are at the heart of catalytic converters, the devices used to strip noxious gases from car exhaust.
NGK's rapid expansion -- one of six undertaken by the company since it took over an abandoned toilet factory off the Northern Suffolk railroad in 1988 -- illustrates the growth of the automotive industry in the Carolinas. That growth has been financed largely by German and Japanese companies eager to get a piece of the U.S. market.
The expansion also illustrates the flip side of global trade. While many U.S. companies are…