Aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney expanded on its 30-year presence in Singapore this morning, breaking ground on its first manufacturing facility in the tiny southeast Asian country.
Pratt & Whitney, based in East Hartford and a division of United Technologies Corp. (UTC), said fan blades and high pressure turbine disks for its PurePower Geared Turbofan engines would be produced at the 180,000-square-foot facility.
The structure will be built adjacent to Pratt & Whitney’s existing repair center at Singapore’s Seletar Aerospace Park. More than $110 million has been invested by Pratt & Whitney in the development of the two facilities, the company said.
The new facility is projected to be completed by 2014, and will begin producing commercial engine fan blades in 2015 and high pressure turbine disks by 2016. The company expects its Singapore workforce to increase to more than 2,500 people over the next five years.
“Pratt & Whitney is pleased to break ground on this new facility and further expand our already large presence in Singapore, which is well-known throughout the aerospace industry for its highly-trained and technically-skilled workforce,” said Pratt & Whitney President David Hess in a Jan. 31 statement.
Stratford-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a separate division of UTC, is among Fairfield County’s largest employers.
