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Non-Tech : GM - General Motors -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: OSHANL who wrote (189)	2/4/1999 8:49:00 PM
From: porcupine --''''>	Respond to of 543

GM aims for 12 pct Euro market share -papers BRUSSELS, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Carmaker General Motors Corp aims to increase its 1999 market share in Europe to 12 percent from 10.6 percent, GM's Europe president was quoted on Thursday as saying. "We hope to rise to 12 percent," Michael Burns told Belgian newspapers. He said GM was counting on its niche models and the new Astra model which competes with Volkswagen's Golf. "The Astra represents 35 to 40 percent of the total sales volume of (GM's German subsidiary, Adam Opel AG)," he was quoted as saying. "It even overtook the Golf in the last quarter of 1998." Burns added he was not really worried by the recently-announced acquisition of Swedish carmaker Volvo by GM's U.S. rival Ford . "Via our 50 percent in Saab, we are active in the same segment as Volvo and on the same markets," Burns said. "It is because of the lack of this complementarity that we were not interested in Volvo." Asked by La Libre Belgique which other carmakers might be of interest to GM, Burns said: "In a speculative way, I'd mention the BMW group . They operate in the same superior luxury segment in which we are weaker. "(BMW) would be the ideal partner, allowing us to increase our presence on the market just above Saab's," he said. Burns added in L'Echo newspaper that GM aimed to study in the next two years "the issue of an increase of our stake in Saab." ((Bert Lauwers, Brussels newsroom +32 2 287 6815, fax +32 2 230 7710, bert.lauwers@reuters.com))