Automaker hurt by war

Wednesday, April 9, 2003 | 9:52 a.m.

BERLIN -- U.S. automaker Chrysler has been hit by slumping sales and intensifying competition in the first quarter and is stepping up cost-cutting to keep its restructuring drive on track, DaimlerChrysler said today.

The warning that the U.S. car and light truck business is under pressure came as DaimlerChrysler said the Iraq war and the sluggishness of the global economy were clouding its chances of raising earnings this year.

"It has become much more difficult to reach the targets we have set ourselves," Chief Executive Juergen Schrempp told the company's annual shareholders meeting in Berlin. "Nonetheless, we will make every effort to achieve them."

DaimlerChrysler, formed in the 1998 merger of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler, is in the home stretch of a three-year effort to turn around the U.S. carmaker that has included 26,000 job cuts and the closure of six plants.

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