A Portadown carpet manufacturer, Ulster Carpet Mills, is in the final stages of a contract worth almost $3 million to supply Axminster carpet for the casino area of one of the world's biggest hotels, the MGM in Las Vegas. The order is for a carpet of around 50,000 square metres, equivalent in area to ten full size football pitches. It is the biggest contract ever undertaken by the Ulster Carpet Mills, which has already won several contracts for other Las Vegas hotels.

Meanwhile, the company is planning to move its entire operation from Portadown's Garvaghy Road to a 50 acre site on the town's Carn Industrial Estate. Ulster Carpet Mills employs more than 800 people, and has a turnover of around £35 million sterling. The company was founded by George Walter Wilson in 1938, and is still owned by the Wilson family.

In 1992 the acquisition of Crossley Carpets in Durban, South Africa, made UCM one of the few woven carpet manufacturers with production facilities in both hemispheres. The company is now the world's second largest manufacturer of Axminster carpets, producing in excess of three million square metres a year.

Among its more recent customers are some of the world's top hotels, including Claridge's and the Savoy in London and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, Carpets made in Portadown are also to be found at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the Royal Albert Hall.