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GM head: Opel in for two troubled years

The head of General Motors in Europe said on Sunday that losses at its struggling German arm Opel would continue for at least two more years and possibly longer depending on market trends.

GM head: Opel in for two troubled years
GM head Steve Girsky. Photo: DPA

“We will be in the red in 2013 and 2014,” Steve Girsky told Focus magazine in an interview. “In 2014, hopefully a bit less. Balanced books will only be achieved in 2015 or 2016, depending on the market situation,” he added.

GM’s European operations have run up billions of dollars in losses over the past 10 years. It had planned to sell Opel at one stage but pulled back when it could not find a suitable buyer.

Battered by a declining European car market, Opel announced in December that it would halt auto production at its Bochum plant in 2016 but pledged to keep the site running as a parts distribution centre.

Opel employs 37,400 people in Europe, including 20,300 at four sites in Germany, in Rüsselsheim, Bochum, Eisenach and Kaiserslautern.

Opel boss Thomas Sedran told the magazine: “We do not plan further site closures.”

Last week he insisted that “Opel was not for sale” amid rumours of a tie-up between the German firm and struggling French group PSA Peugeot Citroen.

AFP/jlb

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FARMING

WTO rules US tariffs on Spanish olives breach rules

A US decision to slap steep import duties on Spanish olives over claims they benefited from subsidies constituted a violation of international trade rules, the World Trade Organisation ruled Friday.

WTO rules US tariffs on Spanish olives breach rules
Farmers had just begun harvesting olives in southern Spain when former US President Donald Trump soured the mood with the tariffs' announcement. Photo: Jorge Guerrero/AFP

Former US president Donald Trump’s administration slapped extra tariffs on Spain’s iconic agricultural export in 2018, considering their olives were subsidised and being dumped on the US market at prices below their real value.

The combined rates of the anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties go as high as 44 percent.

The European Commission, which handles trade policy for the 27 EU states, said the move was unacceptable and turned to the WTO, where a panel of experts was appointed to examine the case.

In Friday’s ruling, the WTO panel agreed with the EU’s argument that the anti-subsidy duties were illegal.

But it did not support its stance that the US anti-dumping duties violated international trade rules.

The panel said it “recommended that the United States bring its measures into conformity with its obligations”.

EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis hailed the ruling, pointing out that the US duties “severely hit Spanish olive producers.”

Demonstrators take part in a 2019 protest in Madrid, called by the olive sector
Demonstrators take part in a 2019 protest in Madrid called by the olive sector to denounce low prices of olive oil and the 25 percent tariff that Spanish olives and olive oil faced in the United States. (Photo by PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU / AFP)
 

“We now expect the US to take the appropriate steps to implement the WTO ruling, so that exports of ripe olives from Spain to the US can resume under normal conditions,” he said.

The European Commission charges that Spain’s exports of ripe olives to the United States, which previously raked in €67 million ($75.6 million) annually, have shrunk by nearly 60 percent since the duties were imposed.

The office of the US Trade Representative in Washington did not immediately comment on the ruling.

According to WTO rules, the parties have 60 days to file for an appeal.

If the United States does file an appeal though, it would basically amount to a veto of the ruling.

That is because the WTO Appellate Body — also known as the supreme court of world trade — stopped functioning in late 2019 after Washington blocked the appointment of new judges.

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