New York  - Ford Motor Company said Monday it had trimmed its debts by 38 per cent in a massive effort to keep the car maker from seeking government aid to survive.

Ford, the only US carmaker not to have received government funds, has reduced its debt by 9.9 billion dollars through agreements with creditors. It offered last month to pay creditors discounted amounts using 2.4 billion dollars in cash and 468 million shares of stock.

The debt reduction will save Ford 500 million dollars in interest each year, the company said.

London, Apr. 6 : The TATA-owned struggling motor group Jaguar Land-Rover looks to set to receive a European bailout package of 270 million pounds to safeguard as many as 14,500 jobs in the UK.

JLR has been one of the victims of a 22 per cent drop in UK car sales over the last year.

The loan deal, which has been agreed with the European Investment Bank (EIB), a development bank, will see the company get 270 million pound in funding.

Tokyo - Imported vehicle sales in the past fiscal year plunged 24.8 per cent from the year before to 199,115 units, the Japan Automobile Importers Association said Monday.

Sales of vehicles made by foreign manufacturers dropped 22.2 per cent in the year that ended March 31 to 176,723 units while those produced abroad by Japanese makers nosedived 40.3 per cent to 22,392 units.

Volkswagen sold 40,661 units for the year, ranking at the top with a market share of 20.42 per cent, but its sales fell
21.2 per cent year-on-year.

TATA Motors has asked for 10 months time from the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation to remove equipment from the mother plant situated in Singur.

WBIDC Managing Director, Subrata Gupta, said, "Tata Motors had written to WBIDC in November that it would require 10 months to remove the equipment from Singur."

The ambitious project of Ratan Tata was earlier planned at Singur but later shifted to Sanand in Gujarat due to stiff opposition by Trinamool Congress led opposition parties over land and compensation issue.

In reaction to the patent granted to Bajaj Auto for its ExhausTEC invention, TVS Motor Company's President Marketing, HS Goindi told Business Line that his company had neither infringed the patent nor would the grant of patent have any affect whatsoever on TVS' business, as "none of the products of the company utilize the said technology."

Munich - German officials are increasingly reluctant to arrange a separate rescue deal for the German subsidiary of General Motors (GM) after concluding that it has no assets, a news magazine reported Saturday.

At the same time, both German labour leaders and the chief executive of GM Europe insisted serious talks were still being pursued to bring in an outside investor at the Opel volume carmaking unit.

The magazine Focus quoted an unnamed German minister saying Opel's patents, plant and real estate had already been mortgaged to the US government and US banks as security for loans, and could thus not be acquired by a new investor.