State agencies are trying to ensure jobs remain secure, writes Francess McDonnell, Northern Ireland Business Correspondent

Fujitsu, the Japanese chip and PC giant, is carrying out a wide review of its manufacturing operations in Northern Ireland in a move which could lead to the virtual closure of one of its sites in Belfast or Antrim.

Government agencies in the North are currently in discussions with the Japanese giant in a bid to ensure that as many of the manufacturing jobs as possible remain in Northern Ireland.

Fujitsu employs around 1,000 people in the North. Some 450 are employed at its ICL division, while a further 240 people are employed at its telecommunications centre in Belfast.

The current review into the Japanese group's Northern Ireland manufacturing operations is examining the role of its facilities located at Springvale in west Belfast, where 50 people are employed, and a repair facility in Antrim, which employs around 90 staff.

The review is part of Fujitsu's ongoing global restructuring programme, which aims to reduce the group's total workforce by 4,500 people by the end of March.

Last year the Japanese group axed 24 jobs at Antrim and Springvale, but Fujitsu's Northern Ireland employees now fear that the current review will see its manufacturing operations severely reduced in the North.

The electronics group has been a major investor in Northern Ireland. Two years ago, it announced plans to inject a further £29.4 million sterling (447.4 million) to create a new engineering centre in Belfast.

Although the centre - which was expected to create 400 jobs over the next four years - is still set to go ahead, it will do so at a much slower pace than previously anticipated.

Last week, the Japanese group also announced its decision to close one of its divisions in the South, with the potential loss of 127 jobs.

Fujitsu Isotec Ireland, which manufactures components and products for serial printers, will close by the end of the month.

No decision has yet been taken by Fujitsu regarding the future of its Northern Ireland manufacturing plants.

Another of the North's major employers, Bombardier Aerospace, yesterday issued a further 290 redundancy notices as part of a programme of redundancies outlined by the Canadian group last year.

Last autumn, the aerospace giant said it would axe 400 temporary workers before Christmas and make 500 permanent staff redundant by the end of this month because of the global economic downturn and a slump in the aviation sector following the terrorist attacks on the United States.

Bombardier has also warned that a further 1,110 jobs could be under threat unless the sector improves in the short term.

The Canadian group said yesterday it expected a total of 390 jobs would be shed - less than the 523 permanent jobs it had earlier envisaged.

A spokesman for Bombardier said: "We have also made significant progress in protecting some jobs we expected to lose later this year.

"We now expect the overall potential job losses to be several hundred less than the 2,000 we announced last September, provided there is no further major deterioration in the market.

"This is due both to the success of some of the mitigation measures the company has been pursuing with the support of the trade unions, and to some of our customers revising production rates upwards," he said. But the spokesman warned that Bombardier plans to review its employee requirements for 2002-2003 early next month.

Viridian is strongly refuting claims by the industry watchdog in Northern Ireland of a "systemic divergence" in electricity prices between the North and Britain, Ireland and the rest of the European Union.

Viridian, the parent company of Northern Ireland Electricity, said yesterday that when each country's regulatory cycle was taken into account, no such systematic divergence existed.

The industry watchdog's strong stance on the issue of divergence has impacted heavily on Viridian's share price in recent weeks.