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Germany looks to aid crisis-hit automakers
2008-11-16
BERLIN (AFP) - Signs grew Sunday that Berlin may do more to help Germany's entire industry a day ahead of a crisis meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel and executives from cash-strapped Opel. Opel, which employs almost 26,000 people in Europe's biggest economy, said on Friday it needed the German state to guarantee loans from banks as its US parent company General Motors (GM) struggles to stave off bankruptcy. This followed an announcement from GM, which together with the other Big Three US auto titans Ford and Chrysler is desperately seeking US government help, that it would be seeking state help in countries where it had major operations. Earlier this year, Congress approved a 25 billion dollar loan guarantee program to help the Big Three but the firms have asked lawmakers for the same amount again to survive a steep US economic downturn. Germany, with four main production sites, accounts for almost half of GM's employees in Europe, where almost one in ten vehicles sold carries a brand owned by GM like Opel, Vauxhall, Saab or Chevrolet. According to press reports Opel, which GM has owned since 1929, needs up to two billion euros (2.5 billion dollars) in guarantees and this is set to be covered by the federal government and by some of Germany's 16 states. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Washington, where she was attending a G20 meeting on the global financial crisis, that she would meet top executives from Opel on Monday. On Tuesday Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck and Economy Minister Michael Glos were due to discuss the situation with the premiers of those states where Opel has its main factories "to look for possible solutions," Merkel said. But Merkel, whose country, like the United States is highly dependent on the automobile industry for jobs and which last week officially entered recession, is not just faced with problems at Opel. Some 750,000 people in Germany work in the auto sector, not just for carmakers but also for parts makers like Bosch or Continental. When other associated sectors are included, one in seven jobs in the world's third biggest economy is linked to the industry. Three out of every four vehicles made in Germany is exported and figures from around the world show that consumers are buying far fewer cars. Numbers published Friday by the European automakers association ACEA showed new car sales slumping 14.5 percent in October, the sixth straight drop. Other carmakers such as Daimler, BMW and Porsche have also reported slumping sales, have laid off workers and announced cuts in production. BMW, for example, aims to eliminate 8,100 posts by the end of the year and has so far announced that it is cutting output by 65,000 vehicles, while Porsche reported a 39-percent slump in North America sales. "We have to help the German automobile industry," Juergen Ruettgers, premier of Germany's most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia, home to a large plant in Cologne owned by Ford, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "The guarantees for Opel are a first step. Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that the cabinet would look at other measures to help out the industry beyond what the government has already annnounced in the form of tax incentives, which have been criticised as being too small to have an effect. The additional measures could include providing state-backed loans for consumers buying a new car, lower interest rates on loans and a bonus for taking cars older than 10 years more off the road, Gabriel told the Tagesspiegel daily.
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