Hanover, Germany - Truck operators in Germany are planning to follow the transport industry in other countries, demonstrating for government relief from soaring fuel prices, an industry leader said Saturday.

Separately, a market-research company said 51,000 medium-sized German companies were close to failure because of rising costs. The companies say they mostly have fixed-price agreements with their customers and cannot pass on their cost increases.

Bernward Franzky, chief of transport industry federation in Lower Saxony state, said his industry would demand that Berlin cancel its plans to increase road tolls.

"The burden of the diesel-fuel price for the transport industry is disastrous," he said in an interview. "In the space of one year, it has risen by 12,000 euros (19,000 dollars) per truck. Most companies are in the red."

Attacking Berlin plans to increase the average tolls for trucks on German autobahns from 13.5 to 16.3 euro cents per kilometre, he said, "That would increase our costs per truck by a further 9,500 euros per year. It has got to be stopped."

He said the German truckers would not hold a general strike but would organize demonstrations and other disruptions that might lead to shortages in German supermarkets. He said 3,000 out of 51,000 German truck companies were on the brink of failure.

"Our operators are saying that they won't take this lying down," said Franzky. "As a federation we won't invite anyone to do anything illegal, like blocking the autobahns with trucks. But we'll find a means. It could begin with demonstrations."

In the western city of Neuss, the Creditreform company, which surveys corporate credit-worthiness, said a survey of 4,000 medium- sized firms across all sectors showed
1.5 per cent on the verge of closure as of the end of June.

The businesses had blamed rising costs for energy, raw materials and other inputs.

Projected onto the total of medium-sized companies in Germany, that would mean 51,000 bankruptcies, a Creditreform spokesman warned. (dpa)