General Motors has added a new sales incentive: a $US1,000 rebate on most cars and trucks for the company’s 160,000 US employees and their families to boost sales in April’s final week, Bloomberg News reported.

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The rebate, which ends on April 30, also is available to employees at the car maker’s dealerships and parts suppliers, spokeswoman Deborah Silverman told the news agency. The incentive is in addition to current offers of no-interest loans or rebates of as much as $3,000, she reportedly said.

“I don’t know how big the employee sales are going to be,” Burnham Securities auto analyst David Healy, who expects General Motors sales to fall 11% in April from the year-earlier month, told Bloomberg News. “Each ratchet up in incentives seems to have a weaker and weaker impact on sales.”

Bloomberg noted that GM extended no-interest loan offers to five years on almost all of its models this month because of slower-than-expected March sales, going beyond what it did in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. General Motors employees and their families already are able to buy vehicles for less than the invoice prices.

“Every month we look at what to do to keep the market competitive and stay aggressive,” Silverman told Bloomberg News.

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The news agency said GM’s action follows a similar move by DaimlerChrysler AG’s Chrysler unit which, on April 16, added an extra $500 rebate on six car models for employees and $1,000 more on most vehicles for workers at suppliers. Those rebates also end on April 30.

Bloomberg News said analysts predict car makers will increase April sales from last month and April 2002. This month’s annualised sales rate may be as high as 17.4 million vehicles, compared with 17.2 million in April 2002 and 16.2 million last month, Prudential Securities analyst Michael Bruynesteyn wrote in a report cited by the news agency.