NI Company Shipping To West Africa After Hillhead 2012 Show

A County Tyrone engineering firm has signed a deal worth more than £200,000 with a contractor in Sierra Leone.

McCrory Engineering in Aughnacloy launched its MCM40 mobile concrete plant on the Invest Northern Ireland stand at the recent International Quarrying and Recycling Show at Hillhead, Derbyshire, the most important event in the global quarrying and recycling industry.

It then made its West African sale shortly after launching the mobile plant at the show.

Seamus McCrory, engineering director at McCrory, said the show could lead to further business of more than £2m.

He said: "The Hillhead show was tremendously successful in terms of new business leads generated for our machinery especially the new mobile plant, the first of its type in UK with unique features.

"As a result of this participation, we are now following up a series of very strong leads which could boost our business significantly outside Northern Ireland."

The new MCM40 machine is completely mobile and can be producing concrete within a few hours of installation. It has been designed and developed for easy transport by attaching to a tractor unit, and is fully compliant with worldwide road transport legislation.

Invest NI hosted 15 companies in total on its stand, and a further 27 manufacturers from Northern Ireland showcased machinery in other areas of the exhibition, the biggest-ever representation from Northern Ireland at Hillhead. All the companies reported interest in their machinery at the show.

Hillhead 2012 attracted around 350 exhibitors and 17,000 trade buyers to the pavilions and working demonstrations of the latest machinery.

(NE)