VW's Audi to keep up investment in German plants -labour chief
By Andreas Cremer
BERLIN (Reuters) - Volkswagen's Audi luxury division will maintain spending on its two key German plants even as it pushes foreign expansion, the brand's top labour representative told Reuters.
Audi, which contributes 40 percent to operating profit at Europe's largest automotive group, may for the first time build more cars outside Germany than within its home country in 2014.
VW's flagship division has increased capacity in China, its biggest market, and is spending over 1 billion euros (800.19 million pounds) on new factories in Mexico and Brazil.
"Audi will in future too undertake very high investments at the German sites," works council chief Peter Mosch, who sits on the supervisory boards of VW and Audi, said in an interview on Wednesday. "What's at stake is to safeguard future profits."
Audi's plants in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm account for about half the carmaker's nine-month output of 1.34 million cars, including the high-margin R performance models and the A8 top-of-the-line saloon.
The supervisory board of Audi parent VW plans to meet on Nov. 21 at Wolfsburg headquarters to sign off on spending targets for the 12-brand group for coming years.
Under the previous budget drawn up a year ago, VW announced investments of 84.2 billion euros in its automotive operations over five years through 2018, including about 22 billion euros at Audi.
(Reporting by Andreas Cremer; editing by Susan Thomas)
