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.