BOOMING demand at its Lancashire factories helped profits at British Aerospace soar by 14 per cent to £685 million, it was announced today.

And the firm, which employs 4,000 people at Samlesbury revealed it has a bulging order book worth more than £28 billion.

The profits figure for last year, up from £599 million in 1997, is the latest in a string of good news announcements for the firm and for the aerospace industry in East Lancashire.

They come as work on the Eurofighter Typhoon at Samlesbury steps up another gear towards full production

More than £100 million is being invested in the East Lancashire site and tens of millions of pounds worth of contracts are in the pipeline for suppliers with many local firms among those in the running.

Announcing the results today BAe's chief executive John Weston said the group was still committed to mergers with other European defence companies despite its recent plans to merge with Marconi.

Mr Weston said a consolidation of European businesses was "a key element of our strategy."

"The proposed merger with Marconi Electronic Systems is an important step in that consolidation." he added.

Governments and defence groups in the UK, France and Germany have been embroiled in lengthy negotiations over possible mergers between key defence companies including Germany's Dasa and France's Aerospatiale.

But BAe's announcement at the start of this year that it had clinched a deal with British-based GEC sparked reports that European defence companies felt snubbed by the deal. Today's results were in line with city expectations although turnover was down slightly to £7.04 billion from £7.26 billion in 1997.

So far this year the firm has enjoyed a clutch of positive announcements.

The news a fortnight ago that the Greek air force was set to place the first export order for the Eurofighter Typhoon was a major boost to the long term prospects for the project

And earlier this month the Lancashire Evening Telegraph revealed that the Samlesbury site looked set to win a four year extension to a contract to supply T45 Goshawk planes to train America's top navy pilots. Last year also saw

major contract wins for Airbus which the Samlesbury site is heavily involved in.

But the profit figures came as uncertainty still hangs over the future of thousands of East Lancashire workers employed by the group in its Royal Ordnance munitions subsidiary.

A review of sites in the RO group, including those at Blackburn and Euxton, is under way with unions fearing more job losses and closures.

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