A more favourable product mix for the wind energy market led advanced composites specialist Gurit (Wattwil / Switzerland; www.gurit.com) to boost its EBIT or the first quarter of 2006 to CHF 8m (EUR 5.16m) of sales of CHF 89m. The Swiss group, which will spin off its medical business at the end of June did not publish comparative figures, but said both sales and earning were higher compared with the 2005 quarter. For the full year, Gurit has forecast EBIT of CHF 25-30m on sales of CHF 350-360m.

A key factor in the group´s strong performance first-quarter performance was the wind turbine factory at Newport, Isle of Wight / UK, the former SP Systems business bought by Gurit for GBP 75m in September 2002. To improve the group´s capacity utilisation, unused prepreg production lines from the facilities at Newport and Innsbruck / Austria are being transferred to the structural foam facility at Magog / Canada to meet demand from the North American wind energy market. Gurit said transportation sales are improving and figures do not yet include large shipments for the interior of the new A380 Airbus.