Just 12 days after taking over as General Motors‘ CEO, Mary Barra on Monday (27 January, 2014) made her first overseas trip to Opel in Rüsselsheim, Germany where she met with employees, toured the assembly plant and visited the International Technical Development Centre (ITDC).

Barra was joined by GM’s new president, Dan Ammann, whom she announced had been nominated to succeed Steve Girsky as chairman of the Opel supervisory board.

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“I thought it was very important to reinforce in person GM’s commitment to Opel, its importance to the company and the need to accelerate our progress going forward. I am also pleased to confirm that we will add another model to our Rüsselsheim plant” She declined to give further details “for competitive reasons”.

“With Dan Ammann nominated to succeed Steve Girsky as chairman of the Opel supervisory board and with KT Neumann leading the Opel team, I’m confident that we can achieve our goal to break-even in Europe by mid-decade,” Barra added.

Barra noted that GM was spending EUR4bn in Germany and Europe to the end of 2016 which will help launch 23 new vehicle models and 13 new engines.

“We must remain focused on the customer and delivering great, innovative products to the market on a consistent and sustained basis,” she said. “That is how we will win here and all around the world.”

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The Rüsselsheim plant has 3,300 employees and builds the Insignia and some Astra models. ITDC, GM’s second largest development centre , employs around 6,000 engineers, technicians and designers.

Opel CEO Neumann said Opel was “thrilled” to have hosted Barra and Ammann:

“We are honored that Mary and Dan chose Opel as the first GM location to visit outside the company’s Detroit headquarters. It reinforced for all of us the importance of Opel to GM and the support we will continue to receive as we drive to return Opel and its products to greatness.”