THE Prime Minister visited Airbus to celebrate a deal which will safeguard 9,000 jobs.

David Cameron toured the Broughton aircraft manufacturing plant, where wings for 100 A320 planes will be made.

The multi-billion pound order by Malaysia-based AirAsia will safeguard 1,500 Airbus jobs in the UK and 7,500 in its supply chain.

AirAsia has signed up for 64 of the A320neo and 36 of the A320ceo aircraft.

Speaking to Airbus and AirAsia bosses, employees, apprentices and guests, Mr Cameron joked he was “an unpaid member of your sales force, travelling around the world trying to sell your airplanes”.

He added: “It’s great to be here 14 months after I opened this extraordinary factory.

“It’s a real pleasure to be here and it’s a particular pleasure to be here on a day when you are signing this deal with AirAsia to provide wings for 100 airplanes.

“I think today is important as it fits really with a number of things that we have been talking about.

“First, there’s a massive change taking place in our world. We see the rise of these great economies in the south and east of our world.

“The rise not just of China and India but Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil.

“We are seeing real changes in our world and we need to adapt to that and that’s exactly what you are doing here at Airbus by actually manufacturing, exporting and selling airplanes to these great new rising companies and rising powers.

“And it also fits with the second thing I have been talking about, which is that in order to recover properly from the shock that our economy had with the banking crisis, we need a rebalanced economy.

“We need to be making more things, we need to be manufacturing more things, we need to be exporting and selling around the world much more.”

He added: “Britain is number two in the world for aerospace. We are number one in Europe and I want to make sure it stays that way.

He went on: “I am delighted you have won this fantastic deal, this fantastic order that I hope will keep Broughton busy long into the future.”