Washington  - US President George W Bush and Congress are nearing a deal to soon approve a 15-billion-dollar bailout plan for the troubled automotive industry, the White House said Monday.

"Indications are that the legislation is moving more towards what the president could support," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, adding "it's very likely" the two sides will arrive at a proposal by the end of Monday.

Stockholm - Volvo Cars, the Swedish carmaker owned by US giant Ford, is to shed some 2,700 jobs mainly in its home base, the company said Monday.

The announcement was made after unions and management concluded talks. The outcome suggested that 1,000 fewer jobs were to be cut than initially signalled.

Volvo Cars chief executive Stephen Odell said that while he regretted the measures he was "satisfied with the fact that our cost reduction program has been successful and it has enabled us to stay with a lower number of redundancies."

Auto giant Maruti Suzuki has decided to slash prices of passenger cars following the booster package announced by government to stimulate economic growth. Auto sector is satisfied over the measures taken by government in its recently announced fiscal package.

Government slashed the Central Value Added Tax (Cenvat) rate as a part of package and expressed hope that companies would pass benefits to customers.

Mercedes-Benz cars, owned by the German automaker, Daimler, has shown a drop of 25% in sales in November. Sales in the units, which include the Mercedes-Benz, AMG, Smart and Maybach brands, fell from 113,000 cars worldwide in November 2007, to 84,500 vehicles.

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), India’s top utility vehicle and tractor manufacturer has announced that it intends to cease five of its plants temporarily between 3 to 6 days.