Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), which is bidding for the closed UK firm MG Rover, made a new offer recently to employ over 3,000 Rover employees.

The UK Financial Times cited people who know the situation as saying that SAIC filed its 50m-60m ($87m-$105m) bid on July 18, planning to set up a large engineering and design center at Rover's Longbridge factory that would employ about half the 6,100 total workforce.

To ensure the success of the bid SAIC announced its alliance with an overseas consortium Magma, for which two former senior executives of the US Ford and GM work, in bidding for the UK MG Rover. SAIC's main rivals are another Chinese company Nanjing Automobile and a low-profile Birmingham businessmen consortium.

MG Rover, established in 1904, ran into an impasse and signed agreement with SAIC last June, indicating intention to cooperate. As MG Rover's operation deteriorated negotiations between the two sides collapsed in April and Rover declared it entered bankruptcy protection procedure

By People's Daily Online