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Lifeline for iconic UK car firm may be imminent: report

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-20 19:52

LONDON -- The British government could arrange loans to help luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover within days, the Financial Times said Saturday, as a top Labour peer said he was confident of a deal "fairly soon".

The British government could arrange loans to help luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover within days, the Financial Times said Saturday, as a top Labour peer said he was confident of a deal "fairly soon". [Agencies]

Jaguar Land Rover, owned by India's Tata Motors, has been in talks with the government about a deal to help it cope with plunging demand because of the credit crunch.

US President George W. Bush unveiled a 13.4 billion dollar rescue loan for carmakers General Motors and Chrysler on Friday. Unions say tens of thousands of jobs are at risk in Britain unless the government takes similar steps.

Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, who is seen as close to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group whose subsidiary owns Jaguar Land Rover, told the FT he was confident that the government would "fairly soon" arrange loans to help the industry.

"If the government fails to act to help the car industry, the UK will be the only major country not to take action to safeguard its vehicle sector," the Labour Party member of the unelected upper parliamentary chamber the House of Lords told the newspaper.

The paper said Bhattacharyya believed there could be a package of up to one billion dollars in loans to help Jaguar Land Rover plus unspecified amout of support for other firms.

Brown accepted Friday there was a "problem" with demand in the car industry, adding: "We of course talk to the larger companies in our country regularly. But I've got no announcement or decision to make about what we can do."

Business Secretary Lord Peter Mandelson said this week the government has talked to Jaguar Land Rover about a possible bailout but no decisions had been taken.

He added that the firm's owners had the "first responsibility" for sustaining Jaguar Land Rover.

Britain has seen a drop in demand for new cars as the credit crunch bites, many factories are shutting for longer than normal this Christmas and the number of cars built here last month fell 33 percent to 97,604 compared to 2007.

Employers' body the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) wants the government to act quickly while the Unite union says it must step in within days to safeguard tens of thousands of jobs.