NISSAN last night dismissed talk of job cuts at its Sunderland plant, describing it as nonsense.

The car manufacturer responded after reports that production of the next Primera model could be moved from Wearside to France.

A spokesman for Nissan Manufacturing UK said: "It is wholly premature to be talking about job threats."

It followed newspaper speculation about comments made by Patrick Pelata, executive vice-president of Nissan.

Speaking at the Detroit Motor Show, he said moving production of the car in 2007 from the region to Renault's Sandouville plant, in France, would save the group £69.5m.

Nissan and Renault are known to be looking at sharing car platforms and the next generation Primera and Renault Laguna models could be the first to have a common chassis.

Sandouville already manufactures the Laguna and has spare capacity of 50,000 cars a year.

The Nissan UK spokesman said: "Patrick Pelata did say that we could save money by building on the same platform as the Laguna.

"But he was talking about it as one of several options and his comments have been taken out of context.

"No product decisions have been taken on the next generation Primera - including if there is even going to be one.

"There could only be job losses if we take something out of the Sunderland plant and don't replace it.

"But it is pointless getting into a discussion over where a hypothetical model could be built."

About 50,000 Primeras are made in Sunderland a year, accounting for about 15 per cent of total production.

Only 300 jobs out of 4,500 at the plant depend on the Primera, along with about 600 jobs in the wider supply chain.