Shanghai Daily: Business - shanghaidaily.com
AUTO maker BMW AG said yesterday that it plans to cut thousands of jobs in 2008 as it moves to reduce costs. Daniel Schmidt, a spokesman at the Munich-based company, did not say exactly how many jobs would be cut, but news magazine Der Spiegel reported on its Website that the figure was 8,000 jobs. Schmidt said that most of the cuts would come in Germany. BMW employs more than 106,000 people worldwide.
Shanghai Daily: Business - shanghaidaily.com
GENERAL Motors Corp is considering increasing interest rates for car loans in China as part of moves to offset mounting expenses. GMAC-SAIC Automotive Finance Co, a local auto financing tie-up of GMAC, the auto financing business of GM, plans to raise the lending rate at the same pace of the benchmark increase offered by People's Bank of China for previous contractors, industry sources said. For new clients, the rate will be even higher, the source said, adding details would be announced later. China's central bank yesterday raised the interest rate for the sixth time this year by adding a 0.09-percentage point on the benchmark one-to-three year lending rate to 7.56 percent and 7.74 percent for three-to-five year loans. GMAC-SAIC now offered annual car loans for one-to-three year contacts at 11.38 percent while 11.6 percent was capped for a three-to-five year loan. It would be the third time GMAC has raised the interest rate this year following a series of tightened monetary