Daimler to cut 2,300 jobs at Mitsubishi Fuso unit

BERLIN: Daimler AG announced on Wednesday a restructuring plan for its Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation that is expected to result in some 2,300 job cuts by the end of next year.

Kawasaki, Japan-based Mitsubishi Fuso will close a bus production plant at Oye, near Nagoya by mid-2010 and shut a truck plant near the Thai capital, Bangkok, by the end of this year, Daimler said in a statement.

It also will streamline its retail network in Japan, its most important market, to ``adjust capacity to a declining market,'' Stuttgart-based Daimler said.

It added that Mitsubishi Fuso ``will focus on a core product lineup and profitable variants,'' cutting the number of model variants by half and part variants by 30 percent by the end of next year.

As a result, its global work force will shrink by about 2,300 people, Daimler said _ with the cuts being made through retirement, voluntary leave and other measures.

The company will reduce its overall fixed costs by 25 per cent, Daimler said.

Daimler board member Andreas Renschler said that the moves are meant to ``strengthen Fuso's ability to deliver benchmark profitability in a rapidly transforming global commercial vehicle market.''