German car giant Volkswagen said Tuesday the production of a new line of small family cars in its Slovak plant would create 1,500 direct and 7,000 indirect jobs as of 2011.
"The launch of production scheduled for 2011 will add 1,500 new jobs to the 7,800 already at the plant," Volkswagen chief executive Andreas Tostmann said in a press release.
"The 308-million-euro (400 million dollars) investment will create up to 7,000 indirect jobs, more than half of them in Slovakia," he added.
Construction work to expand the plant, which started earlier this week, will also create 1,800 temporary jobs, he added.
Volkswagen announced it had chosen Bratislava for the production of its New Small Family line of cars in April 2009.
France's PSA Peugeot Citroen and South Korea's KIA Motors, Volkswagen's rivals in the ex-communist country, also bet on small, thrifty cars in one of the worst slumps ever in the car industry, which has slashed demand for big vehicles.
Volkswagen, which produces its more expensive VW Touareg, Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne and Skoda Octavia models in Slovakia, has had to cut production several times since the beginning of the year due to low demand.
The Slovak government said in December it would support the VW investment with a tax relief amounting to five percent of the total amount.
Volkswagen, which launched production in Slovakia in 1991, made 188,000 vehicles at its Bratislava plant last year, down from 249,000 in 2007 as the global crisis took hold.
Copyright 2009  AFP Global Edition
