A LIVERPOOL cable accessories manufacturer was last night named as UK Trade & Investment’s best new exporter in the North West.

E-Tech Components, based in Gillmoss, won the Merseyside award at the UKTI’s Passport to Export awards at Knowsley Hall and was then named the overall winner for the North West.

Burscough-based Swimfin, which produces a children’s self-adjusting buoyancy aid, won the Lancashire award.

The awards were for North West companies which had gone through the UKTI Passport to Export programme.

Clive Drinkwater, UKTI’s International Trade Director for the North West, said: “The Passport to Export programme has been helping companies trade with confidence since 2002, and in the North West  some 1,900 companies have taken up the programme and over 1,100  companies have completed it. 

“Many of these companies are continuing to work with UKTI to support their international trade activity and take it to even higher levels.”

E-Tech, which was created by a management buy-out five years ago, was achieving sales of £460,000 in 2006, but now attributes more than half of its £1.2m turnover to international trade.

The firm has won contracts for rail networks in the Middle East and India. They have supplied £70,000 worth of halogen cable connectors for the new Metro Rail system in Dubai, part of an ongoing project which will continue for another three years.

E-Tech has customers in a range of markets including Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea and the USA and are international suppliers in the rail, oil and gas and windfarm industries.

Lancashire winner Swimfin has now been sold in 46 markets including South Africa, China, Spain and throughout the Far East and the Middle East. It is also in talks with national and regional swimming associations which are looking to bulk order the Swimfin.