Merkel: German cars need to 'go green' to compete in market Agence France-Presse

Published: Sunday January 11, 2009





Print This Email This BERLIN (AFP)  Germany's renowned car industry must start producing cleaner, more innovative models if it hopes to remain competitive, Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview published Sunday.



Merkel told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that the sector that invented the world's first automobile more than a century ago must remain on the cutting edge by developing "green" models.



She said her government was willing to help by financing research that could be used in the development of more innovative cars and trucks but offered no details.



"Now Germany is in a new kind of competition to see whether its industry can produce the model of the 21st century," Merkel said.



She said there would be fresh help for the ailing automobile industry in a new 50-billion-euro (67-billion-dollar) stimulus package to be finalised this week, possibly in the form of car tax relief pegged to lower greenhouse gas emissions.



Berlin already came to the sector's aid in November with the temporary suspension of new car taxes as part of a raft of economic recovery measures.



The automotive sector is Germany's largest industry and biggest exporter with one out of seven German workers directly or indirectly employed by it.



But the global economic recession has delivered a crushing blow with giants such as Daimler and Volkswagen reporting a collapse in demand for their models.



The auto manufacturers federation VDA reported last week that 2008 was the worst year for Germany's auto sector since the country unified in 1990, with sales nosediving in November and December.



