GM gets $4 billion additional aid from U.S. government

2009-05-23 11:06:27  

    CHICAGO, May 22 (Xinhua) --

U.S. automaker General Motors (GM) said Friday it borrowed another 4 billion U.S. dollars in federal aid from the Treasury Department as the company strives to present a restructuring plan to the government.

    The additional aid brings GM's total borrowing from the federal government to 19.4 billion dollars. Its original request to the U.S. Congress was 18 billion dollars in loans for its restructuring.

    "We appreciate President (Barack) Obama's and his administration's ongoing support of GM and the domestic U.S. auto industry as we undertake the difficult but necessary actions to reinvent our company," GM said in a statement.

    Earlier reports said the Obama administration is going to send General Motors into bankruptcy next week.

    On Friday, GM Canada confirmed it has reached an agreement on further cost-cutting measures with the Canadian Auto Workers union, which was an important step for the automaker as it struggles to put out a restructuring plan in return for government loans to avoid bankruptcy.

    The deal came a day after workers in the United States reached a tentative deal with the U.S. government and GM Corp. on modifying a labor agreement and restructuring payments into a union-run health care trust, which was also a key piece of GM's restructuring plan.

    Governments in Canada and the United States have set June 1 as the deadline for the company to restructure with government aid. If GM cannot reach deals, the automaker could be forced into a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

    GM said it expected to have borrowed a total of over 20 billion dollars from the Treasury by June 1.

    In February, GM reported an annual loss of 30.9 billion dollars in 2008, the second-largest in history only dwarfed by a hefty loss of 38.7 billion dollars in 2007.

    GM has lost around 80 billion dollars since 2005 when the company started to downsize operations.