LONDON , Jan. 16 (UPI) -- Electronics manufacturer Samsung said it would shut down its manufacturing operations in the UK and cut 425 jobs due to high labor costs. A plant in Spain is also scheduled to close, cutting about 450 more jobs. Even with record profits in the last quarter of 2003, South-Korea-based Samsung cited falling prices for the plant's products and cheaper pay rates in Eastern Europe and the Far East as reason to leave. Many of the lost jobs are in Prime Minister Tony Blair's Sedgefield constituency , which will undoubtedly add more to the prime minister's recent political woes. The Samsung losses may re-open the debate about whether the UK should adopt the euro to keep from losing more foreign investment. 12 countries of the 15 (soon to be 25) EU nations have already adopted the unified currency , which today trades at $1.24 against the U.S. dollar , after a surge that put it at $1.29, its highest since its debut in January 2002. Sweden and Denmark have also refrained from adopting the euro. Carlos Ghosn, president of Japanese automaker Nissan, said that it too might move its manufacturing operations out of its Sunderland , UK plant unless the UK joined the euro. Though the British pound is strong, Ghosn cited long-term concerns with currency stability might cause the plant to relocate. "This lack of long term economic visibility is ... one factor that will be considered ... together with logistics , production cost, manufacturing efficiency, etc.," a Nissan spokesperson said in a statement. The argument against such individual European country currencies as the British pound is that "the globalized world is one of vast, competing pan-national economic blocs -- and if the individually insignificant European economies do not use their collective weight , they will all suffer individually," according to the Guardian newspaper. The Samsung closing may also affect about 1 ,000 more jobs with area suppliers to the factory, which makes microwaves and flat-panel computer monitors. The plant is due to shut down in April. Another Samsung factory in the same area, which made fax machines , closed in 1999. The fact that Samsung benefited from government grants and aid often used to attract foreign companies exacerbated workers' resentment and anger. Worker unions demanded Thursday night that the plant pay back a 10.5 million pounds (about $19.1 million) loan that it received for building the two Billingham factories in 1995. The plant also received about 11 million pounds ($20.4 million) in aid from local and other sources. Nissan has also received government aid, about 3.25 million pounds (about $5.9 million) to stay and build its new Micra model automobile in its existing Sunderland plant. Samsung achieved record profits of 1.86 trillion won (about $1.57 billion or 860 million pounds) in the last quarter of 2002. "This is part of the world economy in which we live. There will be occasions when companies will close plants," Blair said at a news conference in London on Thursday.

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