MORE than 40 manufact-uring jobs will be lost as a leading technology firm moves the remainder of its production base to China.

The jobs are going from Promethean, Lower Phillips Road, Blackburn, and the cuts will take place over the next six months.

Company bosses said the move was being driven by lower manufacturing costs in China and the fact that 80 per cent of the company's production was alrea-dy based out there.

But the Blackburn site, which employs around 300 people, will see its research and development arm boosted, with 30 new jobs being created.

The company employs 600 people worldwide.

Promethean is famous for its interactive whiteboards that are used in more than 70 countries and its online community, which allows teachers to share lesson notes on the web.

Jean-Yves Charlier, chief executive of Promethean, said the creation of new jobs and transfer of existing ones was part of the company's drive to become an even greater player on the world stage.

He said: "We are going to be concentrating our production in China over the next year. The move to China is cost driven and the raw materials we need are closer to us out there. We have a deal with SANYO for many our components and they are based in China."

Mr Charlier, who joined Promethean around four-months-ago, said the jobs would be shed in the first half of this year.

This marks the end of a two-year plan to pahase out manufacturing jobs at the Blackburn site.

More than 40 jobs were lost at the end of 2006 when the night-shift was phased out. Around 150 employees work at its southern Chinese producton site in Shenzhen.

He added that the Blackburn site was still key to their global aspirations and the new jobs in research and development would add to the 30 engineers already working in this area.

He said: "We want to enhance the research and development around our products so they have global appeal.

"Our research and development centre is in Blackburn and we are doubling the amount of engineers in that area.

"We are expanding a section of the Blackburn workforce and creating new centres of excellence."

A union spokesman for Unite said the Government needed to do more to stem the flow of work going oversees where costs are cheaper.