PSA insists that Opel has to cut costs to be competitive

The president of the French PSA group, Carlos Tavares, insisted today that the car manufacturer Opel, which belongs to the consortium, has to cut costs to be competitive.

Berlin, Nov 16 (EFE) .- The president of the French PSA group, Carlos Tavares, insisted today that the car manufacturer Opel, which belongs to the consortium, has to cut costs for be competitive.

Tavares, at a business meeting in Berlin organized by the newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung", said that the PSA project is to keep Opel as an independent brand and that is handled from Russelheim (central Germany), but added that, for this, the company has to start earning money.

"We have to look at the reality, Opel costs are 50 percent above those of PSA, "said Tavares.

However, the president of the car group was confident that optimization was achieved and recalled that when he arrived at PSA, in 2013, the group was in a similar situation and now has clearly left the red numbers.

The specific decisions, according to Tavares, should be taken in Russelheim although those responsible can take advantage of the PSA experience.

Questioned that if the reduction of costs would imply staff cuts, Tavares suggested that the The central problems were in other aspects of production.

"If we observe that 30,000 jobs have been eliminated in the last years without leaving the red numbers, we can think that the problem is elsewhere, "he said.

The goal, according to Tavares, is that Opel achieve its restructuring by 2020 and was confident that so It would happen.

"I did not think the plan could fail, we bought Opel to be successful," he said.

On the other hand, Tavares stressed that PSA is interested in maintaining Independent German.

"Even if my French engineers do not like it when I tell them, a German brand is a sign of quality in many parts of the world," he said.