Nissan warns it would reconsider investments if UK exits EU - Financial Times

Nissan's chief executive has warned that the Japanese carmaker would be forced to reconsider its investment in the UK if the country left the EU.

Carlos Ghosn, who has consistently stressed that leaving the EU would be detrimental to Nissan's British operations, said any exit would mean the Japanese carmaker would reconsider its strategy and future investments in the country.

Nissan, the UK's biggest carmaker, employs 6,500 workers at its sprawling plant in Sunderland, where it has invested billions of pounds and builds many of its key models.

Nissan exports 80 per cent of its Sunderland production, with the bulk going to EU markets.

"Sunderland is a European plant, based in the UK," Mr Ghosn told the Financial Times.

The UK car industry's renaissance in recent years has been held up as an example of a how British manufacturing can lead an economic recovery.

Nissan's Sunderland plant has grown to become the torchbearer of the British car industry in the past few decades, with production steadily rising to more than 500,000 cars per year.

Mr Ghosn's comments come after a fraught fortnight in which BAE Systems announced the closure of its shipyard in Portsmouth, an industrial relations battle almost closed Ineos's petrochemical plant at Grangemouth and Tata Steel cut 500 jobs at its plants in the northeast of England.

British prime minister David Cameron has pledged to hold a referendum on membership of the EU in 2017 if the Conservatives win the general election in 2015.

"If anything has to change, we [would] need to reconsider our strategy and our investments for the future," Mr Ghosn told the BBC, in comments confirmed by the company.

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