Saab is set to boost output sixfold within about two years with the help of an extra 500 workers, the new owners Spyker Cars said in Paris on March 24.
The chief executive of Dutch Spyker cars, Victor Muller, said that Saab could count on financial support totaling $1.0 billion (747 million euros), and would become profitable in 2012.
Saab makes up-market saloon cars, and in Sweden its brand has importance going beyond merely the name of a product. But GM had struggled ever to make a profit and in recent years sales had fallen.
In 2009, the company made 20,000 cars and sold 39,000, drawing in part on stocks. Muller said that inventories were now low.
The company intended to produce 120,000 cars a year in 2012, returning to the production level achieved in 2007, and to sell 50,000 to 55,000 cars this year.
The company expected to employ an extra 500 people towards the end of this year, taking the workforce to 4,000. The production capacity at the factory at Trollhattan in the south west of the country would be increased to produce slightly more than 50,000 cars per year.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010
