Government to aid in search for new Daewoo investor

Economy Minister Jacek Piechota has announced that a meeting of government officials with representatives of six Polish banks backing car producer Daewoo-FSO will take place on Thursday. The ailing manufacturer owes approximately zl. 600 million to financial institutions, and an agreement to extend payment periods expired on December 15. Daewoo also has to pay $900 million to Korean suppliers and $157 million to state Korean bank Eximbank. Piechota says that the Economy Ministry will try to solve the problem by finding a financial investor to bail out the company. Meanwhile, Daewoo has revealed that 51,000 Lublin II and Lublin 3 vans which rolled off the assembly line of Daewoo subsidiary DMP Lublin from 1997 to 2000 have defective steering systems. The company will not cover repair costs. Currently 40,000 such vans are on Polish roads. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B4; Prawo i Gospodarka, p. 4) A.Z.