The European aircraft maker is investing $600m in a factory manufacturing narrowbody aircraft in Mobile, Alabama, in a move that will dramatically ramp up Airbus" competition with Boeing, its chief rival. Boeing has a commanding sales lead in the US but Airbus is hoping its new factory employing 1,000 people will help secure more orders there. The US is forecast to be the second most valuable market after China for aircraft sales over the next 20 years. The Airbus factory is a further signal of a comeback by US manufacturing, which is enjoying a renaissance on the back of productivity growth, subdued wages and pay inflation in developing countries. Alabama is a "right to work" state, which means workers cannot be forced to join a trade union as part of their contracts. Fabrice Bregier, Airbus" chief executive, said the company had chosen a "competitive environment" for its factory. He described Airbus" US investment as a "strategic move." "The US is the largest single-aisle aircraft market in the world ... and this assembly line brings us closer to our customers," he said. John Leahy, Airbus" chief operating officer for customers, said that with the Alabama factory he was seeking to increase the company's share of new narrowbody aircraft orders in the US from 20 per cent to 50 per cent. The factory will start making the A320 family of narrowbody aircraft in 2015 and by 2018 it is supposed to be manufacturing up to four jets a month. Airbus currently makes 40 A320 aircraft a month at its single-aisle factories in France, Germany and China. It is planning to increase to 42 aircraft a month from the fourth quarter of this year because of a large order backlog from fast-growing Asian airlines and US carriers that are replacing ageing jets. Trade union leaders in France said they would insist that any increase in production to meet rising demand would not come at the expense of Airbus" output in Europe. "We want guarantees they won't be touching the production rates in Europe," said Françoise Vallin, an official at the CFE-CGC union. Boeing said Airbus" new factory would not dilute Washington's complaint before the World Trade Organisation that the European aircraft maker had benefited from illegal subsidies. The WTO has held that the European and US aircraft makers have both received some illegal government subsidies, and Boeing said: "While it is interesting once again to see Airbus promising to move jobs from Europe to the United States, no matter how many are created the numbers pale in comparison to the thousands of US jobs destroyed by illegal subsidies." Last year, Airbus underlined its sales ambitions in the US by securing a large narrowbody order from American Airlines, the third-largest US carrier by revenue.