Ford, Britain"s market...

Ford, Britain"s market leader (in sales, at least), has already done that. And if you look at the sheer size of the GM empire, do you really see it having any loyalty to Vauxhall"s Luton and Ellesmere Port plants? Or the brand, come to that? And could the same rules apply one day in the future to blue oval-owned Jaguar and Land Rover? Only Bill Ford at world HQ in Dearborn, USA, knows for sure. But I know this: the Eastern bloc has taken over from Britain as the number one location in Europe for big, ambitious companies to set up shop if they"re looking for a friendly pro-car welcome, low-tax Governments and capable, willing workers.

Unemployment is running at more than 20 per cent in certain parts of eastern Europe, which means the huge labour force is hungry for work. And that"s where it starts to get interesting for the global car firms who are becoming a bit fed-up of paying high western or Far Eastern salaries. Labour costs (that"s salaries and associated expenses) in a place like Slovakia are about н‚бЈ2 an hour and in Poland about н‚бЈ3. In Britain, the figure is closer to н‚бЈ17.

If you were a global, motor industry boss looking to make bread and butter cars at a greenfield site, would you choose н‚бЈ2-an-hour Slovakia on the European mainland or н‚бЈ17-an-hour Britain which is detached from the Continent, hasn"t adopted the Euro and doesn"t even have a modest road (for car transporter lorries) linking itself with the mainland?

By a long, long way, Britain used to be the preferred place for Asian manufacturers looking to build and sell cars in Europe. That"s why Nissan came to the north-east (admittedly with a subsidy from the Thatcher Government), but it"s significant that unsubsidised Toyota and Honda weren"t far behind in building impressive new factories. Not long after that, the South Korean bosses of Hyundai and Daewoo personally assured me they planned to emulate their Japanese rivals by establishing new British plants of their own.

But since then, the car building climate here has changed drastically and both firms have turned their backs on the idea of building UK factories. Or perhaps they"ve just walked away from our dithering approach to the currency issue and the car-hating Labour Government.

It"s no coincidence that Daewoo is now in Poland and Hyundai recently started building an impressive new plant in Slovakia. Britain has become a less attractive place for foreign corporations to build cars. It"s a shame because, with the exception of MG Rover, the very-welcome foreigners are the only mass car producers the UK has and is ever likely to have.