Nissan Motor on Tuesday said it had been granted GBP6.2m (US$12m) by the British government to build a new compact sport utility vehicle at its Sunderland plant from 2010.
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The grant covers just under half of the EUR17m ($26m) required for the changes at the Sunderland factory, a Nissan spokesman told Reuters in Tokyo.
The announcement was made following a visit on Tuesday by British prime minister Gordon Brown [who heads a notoriously anti-car and anti-motorist Labour government recently accused of jeopardising British car workers’ jobs] to Nissan’s European design centre in London, where he met with Nissan-Renault chief executive Carlos Ghosn.
Reuters noted that Ghosn has for years lamented Britain’s refusal to join the euro zone and recently stepped up that rhetoric after the pound fell 15% against the euro and yen over the past year. A weaker pound makes buying car components outside Britain more expensive and deflates profits when brought back to Japan.
Under a business plan announced last month, Nissan had said it would source and build its new entry-level subcompact cars such as the Micra – currently built at Sunderland – in five low-cost countries including India and Thailand, Reuters added.
