TPT September 2009

Ap_260x87_AXXAIR_GB.eps 10/04/09 9:10:07

G lobal M arketplace

Automotive Do not depend on Uncle Sam, the president tells car companies

A step ahead technology

“It was the right thing to do,” said President Barack Obama, on 14 July, in reference to Washington’s bailout of the US auto industry. The occasion was Mr Obama’s first visit to Detroit since the controversial advance of more than $50bn in federal loans that kept General Motors and Chrysler from going under. GM’s emergence from bankruptcy in the previous week enabled the president to take a few jabs at the sceptics who had held that he and his Auto Industry Task Force were wasting their concern and the taxpayers’ money on a moribund industry. But Tom Walsh, writing in the Detroit Free Press, noted that the president is now also “chief executive officer of the outfit that owns most of General Motors” – the American public. And the new CEO made plain to the car makers that he will be looking for shareholder value. Moreover he expects the leaner companies, under new management, to go forward under their own power, without any more support from Washington. (“Obama’s Sobering Message to Detroit,” 15 July.) The bailout, which seemed a tortuous process at the time, has in fact been completed in record time, and the key players are declaring victory and going home. Steven Rattner, who led the White House bailout team, has already returned to private life. And, on the same day Mr Obama spoke in Detroit, Harvey Miller – the lawyer who pushed GM through bankruptcy in only 40 days – told Bloomberg TV that he expected the auto task force to disband in six weeks’ time. Of course, the test of all this velocity will be the success of the relaunched GM and Chrysler-Fiat, and the revival of the fortunes of the auto parts suppliers. Even while avoiding the word failure, the US president strongly conveyed to the car makers that Washington had rescued them from their difficulties for the first and last time. The Freep’s Mr Walsh spoke for many, in Detroit and elsewhere, when he wrote, “Let’s hope that resolve doesn’t get tested.” Elsewhere in automotive . . . › In its biggest recent investment, General Motors Corp is directing $1bn to the development of two new car models in Brazil, where GM sold 580,000 vehicles in 2008 – its best year in the country. Jaime Ardila, the president of GM’s Brazilian operations, said on 15 July that his unit would provide about half the investment outright, borrowing the rest. The new cars, one small and one medium-sized, are expected to be in production at the company’s Gravatai plant in southern Brazil by 2012. Mr Ardila noted that GM Brazil has avoided the problems of its parent company in the US because of strong demand for autos in Latin America’s largest economy.

V A L C O M . f r -photoDanielLattard

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1 machine = 3 applications tel +33 475 575 070 - commerce @ axxair.com w w w . a x x a i r . c o m GLOBAL PROCESS Welding & Cutting Show – Essen – Germany From September 14. to 19. 2009 – Hall 6 – Booth 609

Dorothy Fabian , Features Editor (USA)

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S eptember 2009

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