BELGIUM: General Motors says it will build the next-generation Astra compact car in Poland, Germany, Sweden and Britain but not in Belgium

General Motors says it will build the next-generation Astra compact car in Poland, Germany, Sweden and Britain but not in Belgium. The head of General Motors in Europe announced on Tuesday (April 17) in Brussels that after negotiations with union representatives, the next generation of the Astra model would no longer be built at its plant in the Belgian city of Antwerp. Carl-Peter Forster, GM Europe president, told a news conference: "The GM Management has come to the conclusion that the next generation compact generation vehicles should be allocated to our plant in Ellesmere Port in the UK, to our plant in Trollhattan in Sweden, to our plant in Gliwice in Poland and to our plant in Bochum in Germany. That basically means that the plant in Antwerp will not get the next generation Opel compact vehicle.'' The company said the Antwerp plant would lose the equivalent of an entire production shift this year, corresponding to about 1,400 jobs or a third of the workforce, but the company would continue to assemble vehicles there. ''Now, this is obviously not an easy announcement for our people and the families at the Antwerp plant. We also have to start negotiation and consultation with our Works Council in Antwerp on the reduction and elimination of the equivalent of one shift,'' Forster added. Speaking at the news conference, Klaus Franz, chairman of Opel's work council, said that despite missing out on the production contract for the next generation Astra, the important thing for Antwerp was that the plant would remain open. He said he was pleased there would be no plant closures in Europe. "We achieved and this is, I think, a very good result also for Antwerp that they will continue as an assembly plant..." he said to assembled journalists. GM makes the current Astra in Antwerp, Bochum in Germany and at Ellesmere Port in north-west England. Its Gliwice plant in Poland and the Trollhattan factory in Sweden also won work on the new Astra, which is due in 2010. By then the company hopes to have improved productivity by 30 percent. Its output of compact cars in Europe will rise to 750,000, about 40 percent above the number it made last year. The company's European work force has already offered to cut costs by about 290 million euros ($393 million) to improve competitiveness in the hope of preventing the closure of a another European plant, labour representatives said this month. Luc van Grinsen from the ACV labour union said: "I think today, this is not a very good day for Antwerp. I think we will see, if we go back to the plant, that a lot of our people will be disappointed which is very normal because Antwerp has a tradition of a history of every time making the delivery that was required, that our people showed they were very flexible." The Astra is GM's best-selling car in Europe with nearly half a million units sold last year, and GM plants throughout the contnent were keen to get the assembly work.

ITN Source | April 18, 2007

Tags:. .vehicles. .european. .competitiveness. .percent. .entire