GM's Asia chief to brief on GM Daewoo

SEOUL, May 1 (Yonhap) -- The top executive of General Motors Corp.'s Asia
division will hold a press conference here today to explain the U.S. automaker's
stance on its ailing South Korean unit, company officials said Friday.

Nick Reilly, president of GM's Asia-Pacific operations, will meet Korean
journalists as of around 2:00 p.m. in Seoul. officials at GM Daewoo Auto &
Technology Co. said.
The news conference come as the South Korean government has rebuffed a plea by GM
Daewoo for financial assistance to stave off its liquidity crisis.
Since early this year, GM Daewoo and its main creditor, the state-run Korea
Development Bank, have been in negotiations over the automaker's repeated call
for one trillion won (US$776.4 million) in emergency loans.
But the state-run bank and the South Korean government have rejected the plea by
GM Daewoo, saying they will help the troubled firm only if GM gives its assurance
to keep the local unit afloat.
GM Daewoo's cash position became critical in the current quarter as it already
exhausted a $2 billion credit line.
Last year, GM Daewoo posted a net loss of 875.7 billion won, hit by massive
losses from currency-hedging contracts.
The currency-related losses prompted the labor union of GM Daewoo to speculate
that the South Korean unit may transfer money to financially help its U.S.
parent, which is staying alive on U.S. government loans and teetering on the
brink of bankruptcy.
In the first three months of this year, GM Daewoo's vehicle sales plunged 43.8
percent from the same period last year to 135,489 units.
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