FRANKFURT, Oct 7: Signs multiplied on Tuesday that the financial crisis is biting in Europe’s biggest economy with German firms having more difficulty getting loans and carmakers cutting or suspending production.

This week has seen Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government arrange a 50-billion-euro ($68 billion) rescue of Hypo Real Estate (HRE) and stave off any run on banks with a blanket guarantee for all private accounts.

But as Merkel prepared to address parliament later on Tuesday there was growing evidence that the pain was also being felt outside the banking sector in the world’s number one exporter.

For example Opel, a unit of General Motors, the world’s biggest automaker, said on Tuesday that it was suspending production at two German factories because of the crisis.

Production lines at its Bochum plant where it makes Astra and Zafira cars ground to a halt eight days ago and now its 5,000 workers have been temporarily laid off. At Eisenach meanwhile, where Corsa cars are made and where Opel employs 1,800 people, there will be a three-week production stop from Monday, the firm said.

Opel wants to lower production by 40,000 vehicles by the end of the year and also wants to lower output at sites in Spain and Britain, where it sells cars with the Vauxhall brand.

According to the head of Germany’s powerful BDI industry federation, Werner Schnappauf, this is already happening.

“It is getting harder and more expensive for companies to obtain credit,” Schnappauf told the Financial Times Deutschland in an interview.

Other carmakers with factories in Germany are also starting to feel the pinch, with Daimler subject by rumours that it might issue a profit warning amid falling Mercedes sales. —AFP