No deal signed with Texmaco: Renault

No deal signed with Texmaco: Renault

PARIS (Reuter): Renault SA's truck-making arm, Renault V.I.,
said yesterday that it was in talks with Indonesia's Texmaco
group but had not signed any agreement for the establishment of a
joint venture.

On Saturday the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported that
Renault and Texmaco would form a venture to manufacture trucks in
the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

"Renault VI has always expressed interest in establishing a
presence in the Indian market with a local partner and continues
its efforts in this line. Contacts have been established with the
Texmaco group but they are at a preliminary stage and no accord
has been signed between Renault and Texmaco," the French company
said in a statement.

"No joint venture has been created," it added.

The PTI said the venture would produce trucks with a capacity
of more than 16 tons and luxury buses. Forty percent of the
production, expected to begin in the year 2000, would be
exported, it said.

Production at Renault's Vilvoorde plant, whose closure was at
the center of a political storm earlier this year, will cease
definitively by next week, union officials said Monday.

Some 250 volunteers from the plant's 3,100 workforce yesterday
began finishing work on some 600 cars left on the assembly line.
When they are completed, either by the end of this week or early
next, Vilvoorde's doors will close for ever.

Despite a massive outcry over its surprise decision to shut
down the plant, Renault refused to reverse its ruling and workers
at Vilvoorde finally accepted their fate in July by voting in
favor of the company's redundancy terms.

Renault was severely criticized in both Belgium and France for
failing to negotiate with unions over the plant's future at a
time of enormous public concern over high unemployment levels.