The Volkswagen brand said its 'pact for the future' had achieved EUR1.9bn of efficiency savings, or 96% of the target set for 2017.

The board and works council said the plan is "on track for success" after its first year.

On the difficult subject of partial early retirement (the company last year committed to no compulsory redundancies until 2020), VW said it had already reached 94% of the target for 2020.

Volkswagen brand CEO Herbert Diess said: "We have made considerable progress with the pact for the future but we still have a demanding route ahead of us. Higher productivity, improved working procedures and slim, higher performance structures in all areas of business will be indispensable in order to durably safeguard the future viability of VW. We will be working intensively on these points over the next few years."

General works council chairman, Bernd Osterloh, said: "The pact for the future is a success story. It is now clear that we will achieve our efficiency targets for 2017 and there are good indications that this will also be the case in 2018. However, the pact for the future is also the result of considerable efforts by many thousands of colleagues who have supported these changes or familiarised themselves with new tasks.

Human resources chief Karlheinz Blessing, said: "A key element in the pact for the future is personnel transformation. We have made considerable progress in this area. As regards partial early retirement, we will already achieve the target of 9,200 contracts signed, which we had set for 2020, by the end of 2017. We will continue job reduction in working areas which are not viable for the future and will be reducing the employment of temporary personnel. In addition, we have made a successful start to training and the development of jobs in future oriented areas."

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The pact for the future provides for savings and efficiency improvements in all areas and at all locations, with an annual positive impact on earnings of EUR3.7bn from 2020 onwards, including EUR3bn in Germany. The pact also includes the "socially compatible reduction" of up to 23,000 jobs in Germany at the same time as the creation of 9,000 "future oriented" jobs.