A TREDEGAR-based conveyor belt specialist is being hailed as a model Valleys enterprise by Tower Colliery chairman and Welsh Development Agency board member Tyrone O'Sullivan.

M&J Europe is one of the UK's largest independent manufacturers and stockists of conveyor, transmission and timing belts.

The company was set up in a back bedroom in 1990 by ex-miner Mike Garland, his wife Jasmin and their son Christopher.

It now employs twenty people on the Tafarnaubach Industrial Estate and Mr Garland hopes to increase turnover by a third this year.

M&J Europe's expansion has been supported by the WDA in the form of advice and specialist supply chain programmes to help it deal with deal with large customers.

It has also received regional selective assistance grant aid from the Assembly to enable its move from Cwm to Tafarnaubach and a second relocation to a larger unit on the estate.

On a recent visit to the company, Mr O'Sullivan said: "We are delighted the WDA has been able to help M&J's progress because the company is an outstanding example of enterprise in its development of increasingly sophisticated products."

The company's customer base spans sectors as diverse as automotive, packaging and printing, food and pharmaceutical, the rag trade and airports.

In its early days M&J Europe purchased and refurbished surplus conveyor parts from South Wales collieries.

It subsequently identified the need for bespoke systems and began to design them.

Speaking of his latest plans, Mike Garland said: "Increasing our machining and fabrication capacity will boost in-house production." Mike began his working life with the National Coal Board (later British Coal) at a local colliery where he worked until 1980.

His career diversified when he became chief engineering manager for SASOL, for whom he worked in South Africa. After key positions in a number of other companies he decided to go it alone and launch M&J Europe.