Daimler truck unit says ready for the worst

The world's leading heavy truck maker, Germany's Daimler, said  it was set to slam on the brakes to spare the group if sales hit a wall this year.

"We're ready to take more tough decisions should the market downturn worsen," Daimler's truck chief Andreas Renschler said in a statement.

Daimler, which owns the Mercedes, Freightliner, Mitsubishi Fuso and Western Star brands, has already taken major steps to deal with a collapse of the global market for commercial vehicles.

In October, it said it would shut two North American plants, abandon the Sterling brand and cut 3,500 jobs by mid-2010 to achieve annual savings of 900 million dollars (660 million euros) from 2011.

More recently, it announced that 18,000 workers in Germany would work shorter hours for several months.

In all, the group aims to cut costs by at least one billion euros (1.36 billion dollars), Renschler said.

The Daimler executive warned that the European market for heavy trucks would fall by 30-50 percent this year, adding: "The way things are going, it will be closer to 50 percent."

In the United States, sales were expected to drop by 30 percent while Japan was looking at a 40 percent decline.

"Not everyone will survive this crisis," Renschler forecast, without elaborating.

Emerging markets such as Brazil and China appeared to be showing signs of recovery however, the Daimler director said.

And owing to its cost-savings measures and focus on China, India and Russia, Daimler is "well armed to come out of the crisis stronger," he added.

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