Budapest - So far 201 Suzuki workers have opted to take voluntary redundancy, the Hungarian wing of the Japanese carmaker announced on Tuesday.

Suzuki last week offered two months' full pay and this year's annual bonus in full to any workers at its plant in northern Hungary who opted to take voluntarily redundancy by December 18.

The car maker announced on December 8 that 1,200 jobs, or over a fifth of the workforce, would be axed in the face of a drastic drop in orders.

Suzuki had planned to produce 300,000 cars in Hungary this year, but was forced to scale down production to 282,000 due to the worsening economic climate in its export markets.

Current plans are for 210,000 cars to roll off the assembly line in 2009, though the company said on Tuesday that it will be reviewing its production schedule on a monthly basis. (dpa)