§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what information he has as to which publicly owned car manufacturers in the European Economic Community are currently making (a) losses and (b) profits; what steps he has taken to satisfy himself that cars sold by these manufacturers in the United Kingdom are not being sold below the cost of production; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. ButcherWe do not have detailed information about the current financial performance of publicly owned car manufacturers in the EC.
More generally, however, in their most recently published annual results Renault, SEAT, Austin Rover, General Motors Europe and Peugeot reported losses; while Fiat, BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler-Benz, Porsche, Jaguar and Ford (UK) announced profits. (In some cases other operations in addition to cars are included; and these companies are not all publicly owned.)
We are not aware of any evidence to suggest that the cars produced by EC manufacturers are being sold in the United Kingdom below production cost.