Ford won't seek German state aid: paper

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co has no intention of asking the German government for the kind of state aid that General Motors' Opel unit has requested, the head of Ford's German operations told a newspaper.

"Ford has not sought German government assistance because sufficient financing is available within the group," Bernhard Mattes told Die Welt in an interview printed on Monday.

"Our group has $30 billion in liquidity with which we can implement our plan for restructuring, capacity adjustments and development of new models."

Opel last month became the first European carmaker to seek a government bailout, asking Berlin to guarantee 1 billion euros of loans for 2009.

Mattes said he expected production volumes in the European car market excluding Russia and Turkey to drop to 15 million units in 2008 from 16 million this year. The German market would at best match this year's level of no more than 3.1 million units, he added.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; editing by John Stonestreet)