Carmaker to shrink operations
Güncelleme Tarihi:
AFP
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Kasım 20, 2008 00:00
BERLIN - German car maker Opel, a division of U.S. giant General Motors, will reduce its production next year and is mulling a 30-hour work week, directors told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
"We are getting set for tough times and revising lower by around 10 percent our (output) volume forecasts for 2009," Hans Demant said in comments published Tuesday.
Opel was to cut production of its Astra, Corsa and other models to 1.5 million vehicles from 1.7 million in an initial estimate since demand has fallen in almost every global car market. To avoid firing workers, "a 30-hour work week is being studied in all of our European factories," said Klaus Franz, head of Opel's works committee.
An exception would be made however for the group's biggest German plant in western Ruesselsheim, which builds its newest model, the Insignia. It was selected as European car of the year, and the group is pinning its hopes on the car's success.
Meanwhile, Opel has asked the German government to guarantee loans it might need if the U.S. parent group goes bankrupt.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will make a decision on the request before the end of December.
But on Tuesday, Demant told the newspaper that "even in the event of a deep recession, our future liquidity is assured without a guarantee."
According to daily Bild, directors of Opel and General Motors Europe, which runs the U.S. group's European brands, will give up part of their pay, in particular bonuses they were due to get in the next 14 months.
The question of state aid has become a major political issue.
Germany "is not in a position to save an entire range of American companies," deputy Michael Fuchs of Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union CDU said yesterday in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper.Peter Ramsauer of the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union party added that "everything that would lead to a state economy would be leading us into the wall."
Opel was to cut production of its Astra, Corsa and other models to 1.5 million vehicles from 1.7 million in an initial estimate since demand has fallen in almost every global car market. To avoid firing workers, "a 30-hour work week is being studied in all of our European factories," said Klaus Franz, head of Opel's works committee.
An exception would be made however for the group's biggest German plant in western Ruesselsheim, which builds its newest model, the Insignia. It was selected as European car of the year, and the group is pinning its hopes on the car's success.
Meanwhile, Opel has asked the German government to guarantee loans it might need if the U.S. parent group goes bankrupt.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will make a decision on the request before the end of December.
But on Tuesday, Demant told the newspaper that "even in the event of a deep recession, our future liquidity is assured without a guarantee."
According to daily Bild, directors of Opel and General Motors Europe, which runs the U.S. group's European brands, will give up part of their pay, in particular bonuses they were due to get in the next 14 months.
The question of state aid has become a major political issue.
Germany "is not in a position to save an entire range of American companies," deputy Michael Fuchs of Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union CDU said yesterday in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper.Peter Ramsauer of the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union party added that "everything that would lead to a state economy would be leading us into the wall."