dpa
Munich
Upmarket German carmaker Audi on Tuesday abandoned attempts to find an investor for its plant in Brussels, which it plans to shut down in February amid major cutbacks in its parent company, the Volkswagen Group.
"The potential investor from the utility vehicle sector has withdrawn its indication of interest,” Audi said from its Ingolstadt headquarters in Bavaria.
"There is no potential investor for the production site, and so the active search for an investor has been concluded,” it said.
Audi has been negotiating with the works council and trade unions for the past four months on a social plan for the plant’s 3,000
workers.
No one is to be let go up to the end of the year.
Audi is also talking to the overall works council in Ingolstadt on how to avoid compulsory redundancies at its German plants.
The Brussels plant assembles a single Audi model, the electric SUV Q8 e-tron, sales of which are in decline.
The plant has high logistics costs, as there are few suppliers in the vicinity. Its location near a residential area, railway lines and a motorway make expansion difficult and no alternative use for the site has been
found.