BMW 'Open' To Cooperative Ventures

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Germany's BMW, the world's biggest premium carmaker, said in Sunday it saw no sign of a slowdown in the United States and aimed to sell at least as many cars in 2008 here as in 2007.

BMW already develops petrol engines with PSA Peugeot Citroen of France.

Earnings On Target

Reithofer confirmed that BMW expects to post a pre-tax group profit of at least 3.7 billion euros in 2007.

He said he expected the negative impact of foreign exchange fluctuations in 2007 to be less than the 660 million euros in 2006 while the impact of higher raw material prices was seen
equal to 2006 when it was 168 million euros.

BMW has a plan to boost productivity at its plants significantly and save around 6 billion euros by 2010 to help it catch up with other carmaker's margins.

Earlier this month, BMW kept its title as the world's largest premium carmaker in 2007 as sporty models like the 3 Series cabrio, X5 offroader and new Mini Clubman lifted group sales by 9.2 percent last year.

With 1.5 million vehicles delivered to customers it surpassed archrival Mercedes-Benz Cars for the fourth straight year.

At the end of September when he was just over a year into the job, Reithofer unveiled the results of his strategic review designed to place BMW on a course for profitable growth well
into the next decade.

It aims to sell significantly more than 2 million cars by 2020.