The company has not specified how many UK jobs will be lost, but 150 will go at its corporate headquarters in Venlo, the Netherlands. The breakdown of the losses will be announced after Oc has consulted with unions and work councils.

Oc said that sales of new printing systems were increasing and the trend towards recurring revenues from service contracts is "developing positively". But it added that cost reductions were necessary to achieve its strategic growth and profit objectives.

"We are expecting net profit this year to be 25.6m (38m) and we want 6% of revenue to be profit," said Oc corporate communications manager Luuk Bruning. "Our revenue in 2004 was 1.75bn (2.6bn)."

He added that the firm's partial shift of production to Asia and central Europe was to take advantage of lower-cost labour and the sourcing of parts. So far Oc has transferred around 20% of production to those regions. It hopes to raise this to 50% by 2006.

"The added-value work of assembly and fine tuning will continue to be done at our headquarters," added Bruning.