Two international service businesses are to locate in Navan, Co Meath creating 90 new jobs as part of an IDA Ireland-backed investment.

The two companies are setting up in Navan Business Park and will start recruiting immediately, it was announced yesterday by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey. The size of the investment was not disclosed.

Europ Assistance, a leading supplier of insurance services, is to open a new call centre which will initially employ 30 customer service operators and up to 60 people within three years to handle calls, mainly from Britain.

The call centre will recruit employees from the surrounding region who will be trained in all aspects of the company's operations. As the centre grows, it will handle calls from various world locations.

The company says the number of calls handled at its British base has grown by more than 40 per cent annually and it expects similar growth at the Navan centre.

The company says Navan's "excellent communication links and well-educated workforce" was the main reason it decided to establish an operation in the town.

The other company moving into Navan is Generali International, the Guernsey-based international provider of global investment and protection products, which is opening a new customer services centre.

Generali will create 30 new jobs suitable for people with financial or customer services experience. Generali will be moving its current Dublin office to the new centre which will handle customer service for the company's broker and client businesses in the western Europe.

Mr Paul Gillett, Generali's senior manager, said there was a significant number of "people with suitable skills in this area which will offer us stability and room to expand".

Its parent, the Generali Group, based in Trieste, Italy, is the third largest insurance group in Europe. Premium income for 1997 was 20.9 million ecus (£16.5 million).