Ministers to co-operate over Trollhättan

General Motors will not be able to play the Swedish government off against the German government in the fight over jobs in Trollhättan and Rüsselheim. Industry and Trade Minister Leif Pagrotsky and his German counterpart Wolfgang Clement agreed this when they met in Brussels last week.

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"We shall lower the risk of our being played off against each other. That is why our state secretaries will meet on our behalf during the next 60 days," said Pagrotsky.

Japanese offensive threatens Europe

General Motors is being forced to cut production capacity and costs in Europe, primarily since the group has lost market share to the Japanese car producers. This is one factor behind the overhanging threat of closure at Saab plant in Trollhättan, reports DI on Saturday.

GM accused its competitor of unfair competition, claiming that the Bank of Japan sells the yen and supports the US dollar in order to lower the yen thus giving the country’s car plants the advantage of low costs.

James Rosenstein, deputy MD of Toyota Europe, refuted this, saying "We have a large proportion of our production outside Japan and eight plants in Europe. The increase on the European market is due to the fact that we have succeeded in creating car models that appeal to the European consumer."


Autoliv moves production to Estonia

Autoliv is to relocate the production of car seat belts to Estonia and is giving 275 employees notice of redundancy.
"We can’t continue to produce our seat belts in Sweden. It costs too much," says MD Lars-Gunnar Skötte to TT.

Low price rather than hi-tech

Most mobile operators consider that one way to have an edge over competitors is to offer a range of services such as Telia Go and Vodafone Live. A survey by Cap Gemini has revealed, however, that 73 per cent of customers are not bothered about advanced services - they would rather see lower prices on services.

Song advises shareholders to accept highest bid

The Song Network board has advised shareholders to accept the highest cash bid for the company, a bid of SKr 75 per share made by Tele 2. Earlier last week, Danish competitor TDC bid 70 crowns per share.

Sources: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, TT, Dagens Industri

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