Royal roles: New plant gets duchess of Cambridge’s seal of approval

THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge yesterday unveiled the first Rolls-Royce engine to be produced in Singapore as part of their royal tour of South East Asia.

Prince William and the duchess inspected the Trent 900 engine, which was assembled and tested at the $700 million (£435m) Singapore plant and which will go on to power an Airbus A380 aircraft.

Rolls opened its factory in Singapore in February, creating 500 jobs and taking the size of its workforce in the city state up to 2,000.

The enlarged base – which will also assemble and test the Trent 1,000 engine, which is being used to power Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner – gives the company increased access to fast-growing markets in Asia.

As well as assembling parts made in factories around the world, the Singapore base will manufacture blades for the engines and will house a training centre for staff.

Mark King, president of civil aerospace at Rolls-Royce, said: “This fantastic new facility gives us the extra capacity we need to deliver on our order book, which stands at over £60 billion.”