AN ENGINEERING company on Anglesey has received praise from the First Minister of Wales for its "excellence".

During a visit to Llangefni's Mona Lifting on March 15, Carwyn Jones stated that the business is an example of "engineering excellence" and is "well-placed to take full advantage of developments such as Wylfa Newydd."

“It’s been good to see the excellent and steady progress made by Mona Lifting in growing its skilled workforce and in developing new markets, especially in nuclear," Mr Jones said.

"Wylfa Newydd is likely to be the largest private sector investment in the whole of Wales and we want to see Welsh suppliers make the most of this opportunity.

"Mona Lifting are an example of how this can be done and I’m very pleased they are sharing their expertise with others through the Fit 4 Nuclear programme.”

The Fit 4 Nuclear supply chain programme is a unique service to help UK manufacturing companies get ready to bid for work in the civil nuclear supply chain.

It is supported by the Welsh Government and run by the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre

Mona Lifting designs, manufactures, installs and commissions all forms of general engineering fabrications. They operate in a number of engineering sectors, including nuclear.

At the end of 2017, they were awarded a prestigious contract to install their lifting system at the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) Institute in Switzerland.

The company have also received support from the Welsh Government to move to their current larger premises, and have the largest facilities of their kind in the area.

Steve Jones, Managing Director at the company said: “We appreciate Carwyn Jones taking the time to visit us at Mona Lifting.

"It’s been a massive effort from all involved within the company to get us to where we are today.

"The assistance that we have received from the Welsh Government, especially at local level has been invaluable in our development.

“The next couple of years are going to bring challenges , with the decommissioning of the existing Wylfa site and waiting for the construction of Wylfa Newydd.

"However, with these challenges also comes opportunities in the nuclear and power generation sectors.

"Over the years, we have built up a large amount of knowledge and experience which hopefully will put us in a good position once the larger projects start to materialise."