FIAT 'DOESN'T WANT INCENTIVES'

FIAT 'DOESN'T WANT INCENTIVES'

(ANSA) - Rome, February 5 - Fiat doesn't want government incentives in exchange for keeping loss-making plants Italian plants going, managers said as they went into a meeting at the industry ministry Friday.

"We're not asking for anything, we've said it every which way," said Fiat's head of institutional affairs, Ernesto Auci.

The government has offered the extension of car trade-in incentives this year to keep Termini Imerese near Palermo open and reduce cuts at Fiat's four other plants but Fiat has refused, demanding instead a broader industrial policy.

"In any case, 70% of the cash-for-clunkers scheme went on foreign cars last year," Fiat Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo said.

"Let's stop all this hypocrisy about Fiat being an all-Italian company," he said, denying claims that the carmaker had received too much government aid over the years.

"We haven't got an euro on my watch," he claimed.

Fiat workers struck for four hours across Italy Thursday on cost-cutting plans which will include two-week shut-downs at the end of February and start of March.