NEW American owners of a struggling Newport microelectro-nics plant deny a jobs pledge made at its other Welsh plant is falling short of target.

International Rectifiers (IR) is aiming to double its workforce at the former ESM semiconductor plant at Duffryn, which called in receivers this year and made 235 of its 527 workers redundant.

The National Assembly has given an undisclosed sum of public money to help IR buy ESM for around £54 million - just as it did when the firm set up a £30m plant at Pen-llergaer, Swansea, in 1999.

IR pledged to create 500 jobs in Swansea by 2004 - but after three years just 100 are employed there, leading to criticism in West Wales that it is not meeting promised job creation targets.

But IR's international director of marketing communication, Graham Robert-son, claimed Penllergaer, which makes modules for the car industry, was "one of our jewels".

He said everything there was on target, the milestones of the five-year investment were being reached and production had grown from single-figure predictions to 19% of the company's turnover.

"Let's wait until the last day of the fifth year when we would be confident of having a physical head count," he said.

Asked if it was ironic that IR had taken over a company at Newport which sacked almost half its workforce but now hoped to make up those job numbers, he said he could not comment on how ESM conducted its affairs.

But he added that in addition to the amount paid for ESM, the company planned to invest a further £90 million over the next few years.

"We have a business model at Newport for the next five years and we will need to invest in the waferfab facility to create something that everyone will be proud of and will involve some recruitment," he said.

Economic development minister Andrew Davies said Assembly backing for IR had guaranteed a new future for the town's semiconductor manufacturing skills base. But there are concerns that many of the 235 workers sacked by ESM will have dispersed and been lost.

An Assembly spokeswoman said: "ESM was at risk of losing all its assets. The impact of IR means the retention of 290 jobs and the creation of more."