Derby-based Rolls-Royce (www.rolls-royce.com) has received a £280 million long-term loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to support the development of its aero-engines.

The funding is one of the largest-ever single funding packages awarded to a UK business by the EIB. Over the years, the bank has provided the company with a total of £723 million.

Rolls-Royce will use the loan to develop a higher-thrust version of the Trent XWB aero-engine. Jonathan Taylor, vice-president of the EIB, said: “We are committed to supporting long-term investment in R&D across Europe, and we are pleased to have helped strengthen manufacturing by Rolls-Royce in Derby over many years.

“Investment to help develop new engines builds on the unique strengths of Rolls-Royce and will help to ensure that cutting-edge skills and engineering techniques build better and more-efficient engines for the global airline market.”

Since the start of the year, the Trent XWB-84 engine has been powering Airbus A350 XWB aircraft. The forthcoming larger version of the aircraft, the A350 XWB-1000, will use a different version of the engine — the 97,000lb-thrust Trent XWB-97.