New lease of life for Daewoo-FSO

Following nine hours of tough negotiations in Seoul, Deputy Economy Minister Jacek Piechota managed to convince Korean creditors of Daewoo-FSO to a debt to equity swap and a capital injection. This might mean that the car manufa cturer will be saved, or at least its operations will be prolonged for a co uple of years. Another positive development was that the parties signed con tracts to export Matiz and Lanos models to Ukraine, as well as receiving a go ahead from General Motors, the owner of Korean-American GM Daewoo, and t he Daewoo brand, to continue the production of the models for the next few years. The latter is a direct result of Piechota's recent visit to the U.S, where he managed to convince Lockheed Martin to widen its offset offer to s upport the Żerań plant. The export of cars to Ukraine is one of the most si gnificant achievements of the manufacturer, as the number of 60,000 cars ex ported this year is to reach 100,000 in 2005. All the issues agreed upon wi ll be finalized during the company's general shareholders meeting on Septem ber 29. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B1) A.K.