A NORTH-East company which was yesterday presented with its third Queen's Award for Enterprise is planning major long-term growth and new jobs.

Walker Filtration, which exports about 80 per cent of the sales from its Washington plant, is aiming to increase sales each year by 20 per cent on its £10m-a-year turnover.

Finance director Mark Welsh said the company also intends to expand its workforce by about ten per cent each year - which means about a dozen new jobs this year.

The recruits will join an existing workforce of 100, producing a range of air and gas filtration products.

Those products can filter out such tiny particles in a flow of gas or air that they effectively sterilise it - and are used in operating theatres to extract the smoke created by medical lasers.

As filter specialists, products are designed to remove minute particles in air and gas flows, and are used in many environments from operating theatres to breweries.

Walker Filtration units are also used in industry, and sold round the world to customers in countries such as Germany, the US, Belgium, Italy and Canada.

Chairman and owner Brian Walker, who set up the company in 1983, said: "We feel the Queen's Award recognises our continuing ambition to become a world leader in the filtration industry and the real strides we have made in export levels over recent years.

"This award proves our belief that a manufacturing company in the North East can compete successfully in an international market place."

Mr Walker - who received an MBE for services to international trade in 2001 - was yesterday presented with the award by Her Majesty's Lord Lieutenant for Tyne and Wear, Nigel Sherlock.

The company's two previous Queen's Awards, given in 1990 and 1995, also stemmed from its impressive export record.

Walker Filtration also has offices in Pennsylvania in the US, and in Victoria, Australia, along with a Singapore sales operation.

The company also has a sister company, Micrafilter, in Kent, which specialises in smaller-scale filtration operations.