(FORTUNE Magazine) – Gazing across the wide-spreading forests just before you land at Greenville/ Spartanburg Airport, you might not guess that within 30 miles Procter & Gamble runs a giant factory, Wal-Mart operates its largest distribution center, and Michelin -- one of about 150 foreign companies in the area -- has its North American headquarters. That tarmac is the well-trod welcome mat of a modest-size community that does big business on a global scale -- and it's going to get busier. By 1995 an expanded runway will enable 747s loaded with auto parts to land and taxi almost to the door of BMW's first auto assembly plant outside Germany, construction of which begins next spring. Once known as the world's textile capital, upstate South Carolina has diversified from the rag trade to lure a disproportionate share of foreign employers, including Adidas, Hitachi, Bic, and Hoechst Diafoil. Among the attractions: a largely non-unionized work force whose average manufacturing wages were 42% less than Detroit's last year, a prime location on Interstate 85 between Charlotte and Atlanta, and a combination of big-city culture and small-town feel. Education is a major drawback -- South Carolina's literacy rate ranks 48th in the U.S. -- but the state plays catch-up with high-quality worker-training programs at local technical and vocational colleges.

Today the metropolitan area of 641,000 claims it is home to the highest per capita foreign investment in the country. Rieter, a Swiss textile machinery maker, was the first overseas firm to set up a sales office in the area, in the early Sixties. A few years later German chemical giant Hoechst built a plant, followed by a competitor, BASF. France's Michelin put a new spin on the local economy, opening two tire plants in the early 1970s. North American headquarters moved down in 1990. BMW executives didn't pick Greenville/Spartanburg because Michelin and other auto-parts suppliers have operations nearby, but the fact adds an unquantifiable level of comfort. Says BMW corporate planning director Helmut Panke: ''Robert Bosch ((of Germany)) and Lucas Industries ((of Britain)) have shown they can train workers according to their needs, which are similar to ours.'' BMW will spend about $300 million -- the biggest foreign investment ever in South Carolina -- and employ around 2,000. The State Development Board figures that suppliers will follow and that the state's $130 million incentive package for BMW -- land leased for $1 a year, site preparation, airport expansion, and more -- will generate at least $1 billion in investment and create 10,000 jobs in the next 20 years. On top of that, says Governor Carroll Campbell, ''a lot of people will be coming here because now they know where we are. They know a flagship company came in, and they are going to ask why.'' Joseph Strickland Jr., the regional commercial executive at Charlotte-based NationsBank, beams with pride from his high-rise office: ''One day we're going to see people wall to wall. Greenville and Spartanburg will look like one place.'' Like most fast-growing areas, the community will have to wrestle with what that prospect means. David McMaster, president of papermaker Bowater -- which plans to move headquarters here next year from Darien, Connecticut -- notes an ambivalence in the air. ''The city fathers are afraid they're going to become an Atlanta,'' he says. ''And then again, they're afraid they're not.''