Leeds textile manufacturer Hainsworth has racked up a £1 million order for China’s booming leisure market.

Adam Hainsworth, a seventh generation director of the international family-owned textile group, reported growing sales of baize for Chinese snooker and pool tables and felt for piano makers, insisting on the finest materials as they upgrade production quality.

“Snooker and pool are expanding so rapidly in China that it has grown to represent 40% of our baize sales. Our cloth has long been recognised as providing the ideal playing surface for these games and we devised a new, fast playing surface for the successful launch of Power Snooker.

“Chinese piano makers are also moving upmarket, determined to compete with world-leading standards and they too are specifying our felts. Each piano takes two kilos of wool felt, so this too is a growth area with substantial potential.

“Our trade with China is now so buoyant that we’re shipping products out by the container load and, as the containers return fully laden, this reduces freight costs to a minimum and provides profitable export business.”

So it’s hats off to Harry, Christa and the gang for recently highlighting the ubiquitous Sound Leisure and its range of impressive jukeboxes that continue to buck the recession. The company designs and manufactures a wide range of audio and video products for the leisure and retail sectors and its extensive product range have established it as the UK’s leading supplier of classic and digital jukeboxes.

This week, Sound Leisure threw open its doors for two days of technical training and awareness: “Over the 31 years we have been manufacturing jukeboxes, we have probably trained more engineers than any other manufacturer in our industry,” said managing director Chris Black.

In addition to training, the sessions gave bench and service engineers and business development staff time to discuss products and technologies with trained Sound Leisure personnel.