His Royal Highness, The Duke of York recently visited John Crane's headquarters in Slough. The visit follows on from the company"s success in winning a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2006, and reflects the Duke of York’s interest in UK companies involved in manufacturing and exporting activities.

His Royal Highness made the visit in his capacity as the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment. Working with Government, and in particular UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), The Duke of York’s job involves promoting the UK as an attractive inward investment destination for foreign investors; creating more positive business conditions for British businesses investing overseas; and helping UK companies export their products to emerging and established markets.

He received a special presentation which underlined John Crane’s global leadership in the manufacture of engineered sealing systems followed by a tour of the company’s Slough facility. This took in both the wet seal and gas seal manufacturing areas, the environmentally-friendly packaging operations and the new turbomahinery equipment production and testing facilities which were created recently as a result of a £2.4 Million investment programme.

"His Royal Highness was particularly interested in our growth activities in emerging markets such as India, Russia, China and the Middle East”, commented Mike Mansell, managing director John Crane Europe, Asia, Africa.

He continued: “His interest in these areas was very appropriate as they are all markets in which we have made significant progress over recent years and areas the His Royal Highness has visited in this role.  Last year, for example, we opened a new John Crane Centre of Excellence in Bangalore, India and we plan to open several more facilities in Asia and the Middle East over the course of the next year to expand our operations in those regions.”