As part of its change of emphasis from a Euro-centric operation into a customer-driven global organisation, advanced composites manufacturer Gurit (Wattwil / Switzerland; www.gurit.com) is to transfer equipment from its Newport / UK facility to Tianjin / China and outsource its warehousing and logistics activities with the potential loss of 45 of the 450 UK jobs at the company. Production of certain prepreg materials will be also transferred from the plant to locations closer to customers in Spain, Germany and Canada.

At the same time, a new production unit at the Newport site is expected to be in full operation by the end of 2007 manufacturing Class A automotive body parts from proprietary carbon fibre prepregs. Gurit (UK) will serve as the group´s manufacturing base for carbon fibre prepregs and will continue to lead its research-driven formulated epoxy resin activities for development of new products and related manufacturing technology.