Shanghai Automotive Corp. (SAIC) and former Ford Europe boss Martin Leach were expected to finalize a joint bid for bankrupt British carmaker MG Rover later Thursday, unions and sources close to the situation said.

SAIC and Leach were close to signing a letter of intent on a proposal, which might revive production at MG Rover's plant in central England and establish a design and engineering center employing up to 1,600 people, they said.

"It is a significant step forward. We will see a letter of intent signed between SAIC and Martin Leach's consortium," one source close to the situation said.

However, the SAIC consortium will still have to compete with Nanjing Automotive, which has an alternative proposal to buy parts of MG Rover.

It is up to MG Rover's administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to make the final decision.

MG Rover filed for bankruptcy in April under debts of 1.4 billion pounds (US$2.5 billion), costing 5,000 jobs after the carmaker was forced to close its production plant at Longbridge in central England.

SAIC, which pulled out of a joint venture expected to save the carmaker earlier this year, has been talking to Leach, the former chief of Ford Europe, about ways to save the carmaker's Longbridge plant.

Unions back the SAIC-Leach plan, which they say holds the brightest prospect for saving jobs.

The Transport & General Workers Union (TGWU) said under the proposal a design and engineering center employing between 1,300 and 1,600 workers would be built at MG Rover's Longbridge site. A TGWU spokesman also said car manufacturing would resume on the site, although it was unclear to what level.

(Shenzhen Daily July 15, 2005)