Lochte slams protectionism
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• MAN chairman Wilfried Lochte has hit out at the 'protectionist' policies being adopted in some countries, and at other barriers to international trade within the EEC.
Lochte was speaking in Salzgitter, West Germany last week, at the MAN plant which now builds MAN-VW's 6-10tonners as well as MAN buses and coaches and heavy specialpurpose trucks. He warned of "a growing inclination to take refuge in restrictive measures against imports in order to reduce balance-of-payments deficits. This can have serious consequences for international trade, and is all the more reason for the European Community to refrain from protectionist policies."
Lochte's remarks followed a recent decision by the US government which has made the future of MAN's American bus assembly plant uncertain.
The plant, in Cleveland, North Carolina, had won a 65 million dollars (£43 million) contract from the Chicago Transit Authority to supply around 400 city buses. The order was cancelled when Washington refused to provide its usual 80% financial support for the deal — and it is assumed that increasing American protectionism lies behind that decision.
MAN expects, however, that a recent order for 107 city buses from St Paul will receive the necessary US federal approval. Despite this Lochte described the future of the Cleveland plant, which employs 300, as "open to question".
Turning to Europe, he called for "the elimination of competitive inequalities in goods transport by road. Liberalisation without harmonisation is unthinkable, especially in the case of vehicle and fuel taxes, but also with such charges as motorway tolls".
He forecasts that, mainly as a result of heavy losses in Turkey and the USA, MAN's commercial vehicle division will do little more than break even this year, but he expects total production, including the MANVW joint range, to reach a record high of around 23,000 units. MAN is keen to enter into more co-operative ventures.
"Through agreements with other manufacturers — and even with our competitors — we are able to benefit from cost advantages through larger scale manufacture of parts and components," says Lochte. MAN's recently-modernised Gustavsburg plant already presses chassis frames for Daimler-Benz and for "a Swedish truck manufacturer". MAN and Daimler-Benz have longstanding engine and axle parts exchange agreements.