The European Investment Bank (EIB) announces a EUR 120 million loan to PSA Peugeot Citroën for the design, development and manufacture of a new 1.4 litre automotive diesel engine. This new engine, produced at the PSA Peugeot Citroën plant in Trémery (Lorraine), represents a genuine technological and environmental breakthrough: whilst achieving the same performance as older, higher-capacity engines, it will consume less fuel, lowering CO2 emissions by 7.5 - 10 %, equivalent to an annual reduction of 200 to 250 kg of CO2 for each car. It is expected to power approximately 15% of the 3.5 million cars which PSA Peugeot Citroën plans to produce by 2004. Through this investment, the PSA Peugeot Citroën Group is pre-empting the new environmental legislation which comes into force in 2005.
With a workforce of 4 100, the Trémery plant located in the Metz-Thionville employment area is the second largest employer in Lorraine. The project should enable 250 permanent jobs to be created directly by the end of 2003, so helping to bolster employment in an assisted area which has suffered greatly from the decline of the mining and iron and steel industries, resulting in an 11% unemployment rate.
This operation will also boost the industrial productivity and competitiveness of the Trémery site, currently one of the leading diesel engine manufacturers in the world and the most cost-effective plants in Europe; it will underpin the growth of a European group in a highly competitive segment of the world market.
This operation is fully in line with the Bank's commitment to environmental enhancement and development of less favoured regions. Over the last five years, the EIB has extended loans totalling EUR 4 billion in support of these goals to numerous European motor vehicle groups, including PSA Peugeot Citroën for its projects in economic conversion or socially underprivileged areas:
- Sevelnord plant in Valenciennes which produces the Peugeot 806 and Citroën Evasion MPVs, as well as the Peugeot Expert and Citroën Jumpy utility vehicles;
- new V6 engine in Douvrain (Nord-Pas de Calais);
- new automatic transmission for both Peugeot and Citroën vehicles in Valenciennes (Nord-Pas de Calais);
- new generation of petrol engines (EW) and direct-injection diesel engines (DW) at the PSA Peugeot Citroën plant in Trémery;
- development and production of 1.4 litre diesel engines by Française de Mécanique (FM) in Douvrain (Nord-Pas de Calais);
- new water-based paint shop at the PSA Peugeot Citroën plant in Poissy.