JCB £40m Brazil deal benefits Wrexham and Rocester
Construction giant JCB has signed a £40m deal that the company says will help secure jobs at its factory in Wrexham and Staffordshire.
More than 1,000 backhoe loaders, the digger which made the company famous, have been ordered by the Brazilian government.
The 350 Wrexham factory workers will make transmissions and axles.
The contract will be handled in Sao Paulo, and the firms says it will also bring benefits to its Rocester HQ.
The machines will be put to work improving rural roads to ensure food produced for sale gets to market quicker. A similar number were delivered to the same customer last year.
JCB chief executive Alan Blake said it was an important deal for the firm.
He said: "It is huge testament to the quality and versatility of JCB's backhoe loaders and it's fantastic to win an order of this size as we celebrate 60 years of backhoe loader production this year."
The company says that current production rates see one backhoe machine roll off one of its manufacturing lines every three minutes.