Bradford division of chemical giant Ciba says it has put in a 'solid' nine-month performance against tough trading conditions.

The comments from the Low Moor firm came yesterday as its parent group reported a drop in net sales from £2.52bn to £2.39bn.

The company also saw a fall in gross profits, from £851.9m to £770m, in the January to September period for 2001.

Ciba has been struggling against the global slowdown all year. In August the Bradford plant announced 85 redundancies would have to be in a £2.5m cost-cutting drive.

But head of human resources at the firm's Low Moor site, Rodney Swailes, said progress was being made.

He said: "The focus locally over the last year has been to control costs because the sales levels have been lower than last year.

"So the emphasis has been on keeping costs down and making ourselves more efficient, which included, unfortunately, the redundancy plan.

"Consultation on that process is going well, however, and we are managing to agree on a number of voluntary redundancies.

"We're keeping our employees informed about how we are doing and locally there's a great deal of effort being put in by the workforce to see us through this difficult period."

With a head office in Switzerland, the group has customers in over 120 countries and last year had a turnover of £3.3bn.

Commenting on the report, chairman and chief executive officer Armin Meyer said: "We face a very uncertain business environment, and will therefore intensify our tight controls on spending. We will also intensify our outreach to customers to support them through this difficult period - good customer relations in hard times are key for success in the next economic upswing."

Ciba will have a 1,350 strong workforce in Bradford after it completes its current redundancy programme.