U.S. automaker GM drops medium-duty trucks

CHICAGO, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. automaker General Motors Corp. which filed chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, has shed another bad asset by scrapping its medium-duty truck business after a fruitless four-year search for a buyer, a Detroit News report said Tuesday.

Production of the Chevy Kodiak and GMC Topkick medium-duty trucks at the Flint Assembly Plant, about 100 km north of Detroit, will stop by July 31, and 398 workers will be reassigned or offered buyouts, President and CEO Fritz Henderson said.

The medium-duty truck business has been hurt by near-record fuel prices last year and a downturn in the housing market, which relies on medium-duty trucks, specifically dump trucks, cargo carriers and other work trucks.

GM had negotiated with Isuzu Motors Ltd. as recently as February to reach a deal that would have kept the truck division in Flint through 2014. An earlier failed agreement with Navistar International Corp. would have relocated jobs to another factory.

The medium-duty truck line in Flint produced 22,000 vehicles last year.