FAIRFIELD, Conn. -- General Electric is closing an engine manufacturing plant an Wisconsin and says it will invest US$265 million to build a new one in Canada in a move to take advantage of Canadian export credit financing.

The company announced Monday that work on the new plant, which will initially provide 350 jobs, is expected to be completed in 20 months.

The planned location of the new plant was not disclosed.

GE currently employs 350 at its manufacturing facility in Waukesha, Wis., building gas engines for compression, mechanical drive and power generation applications.

The company said the new state-of-the-art plant in Canada and will be a flexible facility that can expand over time and also support manufacturing requirements for other GE businesses.

"With today's announcement, GE fully expects to expand its relationship with EDC (Export Development Canada) in support of the company's Power & Water, Oil & Gas and Transportation businesses," the company said in a statement.

While many countries have export credit agencies (ECAs) that support domestic manufacturing for export, the US does not. Congressional authorization for the U.S. export credit agency, the Export-Import Bank, lapsed on July 1.

"We believe in American manufacturing, but our customers in many cases require ECA financing for us to bid on projects," said GE vice-chairman John Rice. "Without it, we cannot compete and our customers may be forced to select other providers."

GE is currently bidding on US$11 billion of projects that require export financing and the company noted that last year the EDC facilitated exports and investments of approximately C$100 billion.

Most of the company's 350 manufacturing employees in Waukesha are represented by the International Association of Machinists.

Union spokesman Frank Larkin said the U.S. Export-Import Bank "was one of those rare government programs that worked as intended; it protected American jobs and returned a profit to the U.S. Treasury."

"Killing the bank means thousands of U.S. jobs will be needlessly sacrificed for an extreme political agenda," he said.

The 81-year-old U.S. Export-Import Bank provided loans, credit guarantees and insurance to aid sales by U.S. companies. The bank's charter expired June 30 when Republican members of Congress, who say the bank benefits only a few large corporations that don't need government assistance, blocked a reauthorization vote.

With files from The Associated Press