First Minister Alex Salmond has celebrated Skykon's takeover of the Vestas wind turbine manufacturing plant near Campbeltown, Argyll.

This will immediately safeguard the 100-strong workforce, and the company also plans to boost employment to more than 300 skilled posts over the next two years. The announcement has the potential to create nearly full employment in the area.

Danish group Skykon, through its new company Welcon Towers, has acquired the plant based at Machrihanish. The deal includes private capital investment of £35m to expand the plant by nearly three times its current size, and introduce new manufacturing techniques and equipment.

The expanded plant will supply offshore and onshore wind turbines to the international renewables market from a Scottish base.

Taking into account jobs in local supply chain companies, today's announcement is forecast to support over 450 full-time jobs in the area for the long term.

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And the construction work will support another 400 jobs in the local area during the building phase, in terms of the direct and indirect impact.

The proposed closure of the Vestas facility was first announced in August 2008. The Scottish Government, Highlands & Islands Enterprise (HIE) and Scottish Development International (SDI) have all worked together to secure a new deal and long-term employment at Campbeltown - with SDI awarding a RSA grant of £9.2m to Welcon Towers and HIE contributing around £500,000 in training support.

The First Minister said: "The impact of this investment will be truly transformational, not just for the Kintyre peninsula but for all of Scotland. It creates high quality and skilled employment in the local area, and gives Scotland a lead in the development of clean, green energy technology - putting our nation at the forefront of global developments.

"Investment of this scale is enormously important at any time, and never more so than during the current economic downturn. It reflects the determination of the Scottish Government, through the delivery of our six-point recovery programme, to do everything we can to encourage jobs and development."

Recent statistics show that the entire Argyll and Bute Council area has the second highest ratio of job claimants per jobcentre vacancy in Scotland. Across Argyll and Bute, there are 31 claimants per job compared to a Scottish average of 10 claimants per job.

(GK/JM)