Jaguar Land Rover may get about Rs 2,000 crore loan

After months of negotiations, Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is likely to get approval for a loan of £270 million (about Rs 2,000 crore) from the European Investment Bank (EIB) on April 7, a BBC report has said, quoting official sources.

According to sources in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), the company has met the criteria for a loan which is likely to be approved by the EIB board when it meets in Luxembourg next week.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has earmarked £2.3 billion in support for the car industry which is mostly made up of loan guarantees as well as direct aid to car makers, the BBC reported.

JLR had cut 450 staff in January 2009 and are seeking nearly 300 salaried more redundancies. JLR staff have been working a four-day week following an agreement with trade unions.

Jaguar Land Rover has said that a 500 million pounds package of loan guarantees from the government is needed for its operations in the West Midlands and on Merseyside.

In March, Ratan Tata, the head of the Tata group, had warned of job losses and temporary plant closures if guarantees that could trigger commercial loans were not forthcoming.