BUSINESS and industry in East Lancashire are assessing the impact of the terrorist attacks on America.

Hundreds of local companies have close trading links with the USA, with millions of pounds of goods exported across the Atlantic every year.

BAE Systems, with major plants at Samlesbury and Warton, has been closely monitoring the safety of its 25,000 employees in America.

Three US citizens working for the company died in the attacks.

sA spokesman for the company said they had accounted for all the 250 British staff working in America who would have included staff from the Lancashire sites.

The company's offices in Washington escaped any damage from the attack on the Pentagon building.

More than 20 East Lancashire firms have American owners, including Baxenden Chemicals; Imperial Home Decor, Darwen; Cobble, Blackburn; Europrint, Blackburn; Medex Medical. Rossendale; and 3M Neotechnics, Clitheroe.

Companies like the Blackburn-based Scapa Group have extensive interests in the States, with North American sales last year just below £70 million.

Clitheroe-based Ultraframe bought out an American glazing giant, the Four Seasons Group, earlier this summer in a £56 million deal.

The company's headquarters are in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from New York.