YET another US firm today set up a European base in York for sales and support but with future plans for manufacturing.

California-based R-Quest Technologies, which makes high-speed CD Rom duplication equipment for the likes of Abbey Road recording studio, the BBC, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office, has moved into offices in Clifton Moor.

Where average home equipment can "burn" information or music at the rate of about one every 45 minutes, many of the R-Quest devices can flick out 4,000 duplications a day.

From Clifton Moor the operation will provide engineering sales and support for its European market as well as growing markets in Africa and India.

Later the outpost could provide a service bureau for local bands to make duplicated CDs of their own copyrighted music; and offer duplication of data for firms, for example printing CD Rom brochures.

To start , there will be only four people employed at the office, led by managing director Dave Partington, a Yorkshireman with a faint American accent who is half-owner of the $4 million turnover company.

But he expects numbers to double in six months and double again next year once manufacturing begins. Already several of the new products introduced worldwide this year will have been engineered from the new facility in York. Prices of the equipment range from £800 to as much as £20,000.

The arrival of R-Quest is yet another cause for celebration for Dave Taylor, marketing director of the York Inward Investment Board which has welcomed a host of US companies to the city over the past few years.

These include Thrall Car, Card Protection Plan, Total Systems Service Inc (TSYS), the Washington Inventory Service Ltd, Williams Hayward Protective Coatings Ltd and biotech company Binax.

Updated: 11:00 Tuesday, February 26, 2002