Car parts firm opens £15m plant

The firm expanded its operations at the Ebbw Vale site

A Japanese-owned car parts firm has opened its £15.5m expanded plant, creating more jobs than expected when it was first announced last year.

The Takao plant, on the Rassau Industrial Estate in Ebbw Vale, supplies components and body parts to Honda and Toyota.

The firm had said the project would add 80 jobs but now claims more than 120 have been created at the site.

Regeneration Minister Leighton Andrews attended the plant's official opening.

The press shop includes robotic welding machines and an automated stock picking station.

Takao claims every vehicle produced in Europe and the UK will contains parts made at the 10,000 sq m (110,000 sq ft) facility.

The expansion, at the former Yajima factory site, is backed by Welsh Assembly Government grants and has doubled the size of the Takao facility.

The firm's president, Hiroyuki Takao, accompanied by his board of directors, flew from Japan to perform the official opening. The firm has its European HQ in Gloucester.

Mr Andrews said: "Its investment here in Ebbw Vale is a tremendous boost to the local economy and it is especially pleasing that the assembly government was able to play its part."