Ford plans imports from Europe

FORD Australia plans to bring in more new models from Europe, as larger and more powerful fuel-guzzling cars fall out of favour with motorists.

Ford Australias chief executive, Tom Gorman, who took the role in 2004, says the future will still hold challenges in Australia for the automotive maker.

Last year the company laid off 650 staff and cut 20 per cent of its production capacity.

Specifically within Ford Australia it is going to be very challenging, but I think there are lot of opportunities with those challenges, Mr Gorman said.

We are still doing a lot of very exciting things on the product side and we think there is, in fact, a lot of upside to our business.

Mr Gorman said he has seen a fundamental shift in the landscape of the automotive market in Australia, with larger, more powerful vehicles losing favour.

The market has changed fundamentally and in our view it has changed permanently, he said.

Were actively pursuing bringing more important products into this country and really being in the segments where our customers want us to be and thats the simple reason we think that we can turn around our share decline and grow our business profitably into the future.

Ford Australia had sales of around 76,000 last year and Mr Gorman believes this years numbers will be similar, although a lot of growth will come in the second half of the year.

We have an all new Focus coming out in the middle of this year ... were bringing in an all new Mondeo, he explained.

We do see a lot of growth coming, particularly in the second half of this year.

He also said there is a new Falcon planned for next year despite some pressure on the model.

Mr Gorman said the decision to cut 20 per cent of production capacity and 650 jobs last year was the right one, but tough.

Source: [url=http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4021468a30.html]Stuff.co.nz[/url]