Volkswagen says not interested in buying Chrysler

FRANKFURT: Volkswagen, Europe's biggest car maker, said on Wednesday it was not interested in acquiring DaimlerChrysler's struggling US unit.    

"There are no such considerations at the moment," a spokesman for VW said when asked whether the company wanted to acquire Chrysler or expand its partnership with the US company.   

Chrysler and VW agreed last year to build the mini-van model in the Chrysler production facility and sell it bearing the VW brand.   

A report on Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal said that the French-Japanese car group Renault-Nissan was not interested in buying or linking up with DaimlerChrysler's US unit.   

A report last Friday said that General Motors was in talks to buy all of the rival's Chrysler Group.   

DaimlerChrysler said last week it planned to axe 13,000 jobs at its loss-making Chrysler subsidiary as part of a broad restructuring plan aimed at returning the US unit to profitability by 2008.   

DaimlerChrysler chairman Dieter Zetsche said that he was reviewing "further strategic options" for Chrysler and did not rule out the sale of the subsidiary, a move shareholders in Germany have been advocating.   

Chrysler, a company created in 1925, was bought in 1998 by the Germany auto and aerospace group in a deal worth 92 billion dollars, described at the time as the largest industrial merger in corporate history.