Double order blow; We have sound base for recovery, says management.

Byline: DAVID JONES 

JOBS are to be cut after a business with manufacturing sites at Wrexham and Runcorn lost two major contracts and almost half its orderbook.

Between 60 and 65 jobs could go across the two Intelicoat Technologies factories which between them employ 210 people.

But senior management says the underlying business is sound and it is confident that both sites will survive and prosper again.

Intelicoat Technologies provides coating services in which proprietary chemicals are coated onto a base in the manufacture of printed circuits and other products.

The company's European managing director Tom Dickie said the company had recently suffered a double blow with the loss of two orders,one of them a long-standing contract with Warrington-based Shipley Electronics. ``We will lose a significant chunk of business, some 45pc of the combined sales from our Wrexham and Runcorn sites, across the two contracts between now and the end of the year,'' said Mr Dickie.

``We had acted as a subcontractor to Shipley Electronics for well over 20 years but Shipley has sold its business globally to an Asian company and the product will now be supplied finished to them.''

He added: ``It is an enormous blow but we feel we still have the skill base and the investment base and are in a good position here to fight back. Other parts of our business are growing and will continue to grow,but it will take us a while to recover sales.

``We did consider closing sites but,frankly, we feel good about the business,its people and their skills and we are working very hard to get additional business.''

which reflects the divisions in the wider society. Those who are not yet on-line tend to be elderly people, those in low income households,disabled people and the long-term unemployed. For Wales, where we have an older and poorer population than the rest of the UK, there is the real worry that, unless action is taken soon to address this problem, we may fall further behind as a nation with regard to creating opportunities for our society via the internet.

For businesses, the b-word now is broadband which is increasing its penetration at a record speed, with the UK having more than 1.6mhigh-speed broadband users,increasing by around 35,000 per week.

Most importantly, theUK market is more competitive both in terms of infrastructure and service provider competition and,as a result, UK prices are cheaper than those of many ofBusiness StaffThe company, known as Rexam Image Products until a year ago, is privately owned by a US company headquartered in Massachusetts. Group turnover is $240m of which 24pc is contributed by its European operations made up of the two UK manufacturing plants and sales office in Amsterdam.

Mr Dickie said the work Intelicoat had been carrying out for Shipley will be ramped down by the end of the year, while the second contact comes to a natural end within the next few weeks. It was too early to say exactly how many jobs will go at each site,but the combined total would be about 65. He said: ``We are trying to put together a plan that will take our cost base down so that we can survive on the two sites.''

He said that while markets in Europe and the USA had been subdued since September, 2001, he sensed some confidence beginning to return.

our European neighbours. In Wales,it is crucial that as many businesses as possible have access to broadband as quickly as possible and the Welsh Assembly Government has recently announced that it will be spending pounds 115mon improving access to broadband during the next five years.

However,my worry is that most of this will be concentrated around our urban centres and that rural Wales will not get its fair share of funding.

This would be unfortunate as the future of rural parts of our nation relies on building on its competitive advantage as a wonderful place to live,but also through making it a wonderful place to work,especially through the development of important infrastructure such as broadband.

This would mean that businesses could trade and communicate globally from places as remote as Aberdaron,eliminating the need for location. Most importantly, the type of knowledge-based service industries that would use broadband are exactly the type of industries to keep our young people here in North West Wales and to attract the birds that have flown the nest back home.

Since May,1999, the number of young people in employment in North Wales has decreased by 32,000,and many will continue to leave to find opportunities in other parts of Wales and the UK unless we can establish the right system to enable them to stay here to help develop our economy.

Access to modern infrastructure such as broadband may be only a small part of the package required but it is,nevertheless,a crucial one,if we are to develop the industries of the future here in North Wales.

Business website of the week www.technologywales.co.ukis the home page of a major,free conference,Technology Wales 2003,held at the Celtic Manor at the end of this month, that will address specific initiatives aimed at persuading small businesses to make more of the current technological revolution.