Falling wind turbine sales in Europe force blade producer to close plants as it shifts focus to China

The world's largest producer of wind turbine blades announced today that it would move 900 jobs to China and other low-wage countries as part of an effort to hold production costs down.

Kolding-based LM Glasfiber said 700 of the layoffs would be found amongst its Danish employees.

LM Glasfiber has cut 1900 jobs in Denmark alone so far this year, and the latest round of cuts will reduce its total number of domestic employees to 500.

A company statement said the cuts were being made to secure its competitiveness, and attributed the move to a decreasing number of European orders.

'We need to cut down where the global crisis has dragged down demand, and unfortunately, that is in Europe,’ Chief Operating Officer Iain Gow said.

In addition to closing two plants in Denmark, LM Glasfiber will also shutter a factory in Spain.

The company, however, said it expected to hire 200 employees at a new technology centre in Denmark as it shifted the focus of its European activities to research and development.

After announcing plans this spring that it planned to open a third plant in China, LM Glasfiber has since announced that it would build a further three facilities there.

Plans to expand production capacity in China came in the wake of a number of new orders by wind turbine producers who expect to increase their sales on the Chinese market.