EUROPE’S car manufacturers are facing their worst crisis since the Great Depression and need government help to survive, the president of Nissan insists.
Carlos Ghosn, who is also president of the European Car Makers’ Association and head of Renault, said the industry was facing a “crisis that is brutal, global and of an exceptional size”.
“We even talk about the Great Depression of 1929,” he told a summit of car makers, suppliers and unions, organised by the French government.
Mr Ghosn called for measures, including the taxing of imported vehicles and the suspension of business tax, to be introduced to help support the industry across Europe.
He demanded “the rapid, determined and co-ordinated intervention of governments and European institutions,”
saying that car makers had an “urgent need” for liquidity.
Mr Ghosn also called on governments to assure access to credit at reasonable terms “via loans at preferential terms like what was done in the US”.
His comments came after motor manufacturers in the UK have been forced to take drastic steps, including cutting jobs and suspending production, to beat the downturn in the sector.
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