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LE BOURGET, France: The world's leading helicopter maker, Eurocopter, will be setting up its South East Asian base at the Seletar Aerospace Park next year.
This was announced on the first day of the Paris Air Show.
Currently located at Loyang, Eurocopter's South East Asia division will use its new base at the Seletar Aerospace Park for sales and customer support activities.
It plans to move in the third quarter of 2010.
It is spending about 6 million euros for the infrastructure at the new premises.
The Eurocopter 225 model is just one of the company's 300 helicopters that is already in the Asia Pacific region. The company said that by moving into Seletar, it can have better communication with the customers in the region and will also allow its office space to increase by 25 per cent.
The company also does not view the current economic slump affecting its performance in Seletar.
Philippe Harache, senior executive vice president - Eurocopter, said: "It is a golden opportunity for us to invest. We are totally confident of the short- and long-term future of the area. Even if times are tough today, we think it is the right time."
Dr Bernhard Brenner, president, Eurocopter South East Asia, said: "There are two reasons to move to Seletar. We need space. We are growing and we need bigger capacity, and we need a more comfortable area for flight operations which are quite complicated."
The helicopter maker has about 200 employees in Singapore now, with 95 per cent being local Singaporeans.
With the move to Seletar, there are plans to hire more locals.
It has some 3,000 customers around 150 countries worldwide.
Eurocopter South East Asia had a turnover of 85 million euros in 2008.
In South East Asia, it has about 60 to 70 large customers at the moment and is confident of more orders, after it moves to Seletar Aerospace Park. - CNA/ms
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