Optical solutions provider Qioptiq officially opened a new factory in Singapore, the company announced last week. The 200,000-sq-ft factory has been in development and construction for three years and now provides Paris-based Qioptiq Group with a center of excellence for the manufacture of precision optics in the Asia Pacific region, the company said. The new facility increases upon the company's previous site by nearly 120 percent and employs 800. It includes cleanroom facilities to better serve key defense and commercial customers and also provides space to enable Qioptiq to make optics in the ultraviolet wavelength range. The Oct. 23 dedication ceremony was attended by nearly 200 Qioptiq customers, suppliers and employees, Singapore's finance minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and Josephine Teo, member of Parliament and executive secretary of Singapore Industrial & Services Employees' Union.