a tale of two car companies ford is forced to respond to protests over multi-site layoffs while fia chrysler announces it's adding sixty five hundred jobs in detroit . and while going to the d.m.v. the thaw in u.s. north american north korean relations is fueling a property boom in the heavily guarded in militarized zone between the two koreas our correspondent went and got the lay of the land. welcome to d.w. business i'm joined on in berlin good to have you with us as u.s. automaker ford embarks on a cost cutting drive around the world it's in countering some unsurprising resistance the french government has strongly criticized the company's decision to shutter a plant making gear boxes near bordeaux meanwhile in brazil two thousand ford

workers and union members marched outside cell pollo to protest ford shutting down its operations their. employees have known for a week but now they're fighting back even if the weather is not on their side ford wants to stop production at its sao paolo factory almost three thousand employees will be affected fisons could follow you they've spoken about it for years but we didn't expect it everyone is desperate no one has a plan b. . i'm fifty one years old i've worked for ford for twenty six years and i'm here i'm about to retire but i'm fighting with my colleagues i have family who works here at. the plant just to be closed at the end of the year with unemployment at eleven percent in brazil the workers have few prospects. and ford is shutting a plant in france as well come this summer around. two hundred people will lose

their jobs their suppliers major takeover bid but ford has rejected it the french government is not the only one to criticize the move. or is letting us go with nothing so they have to pay that's that they have to pay they have to give us money but. the severance payments are still under negotiation and that's only the beginning ford has announced that it's going to close even more locations in europe. now in contrast to ford's layoffs around the world chrysler has announced six and a half thousand new jobs. the carmaker has presented a four and a half billion dollar investment plan for the detroit area the company plans to reopen and engine facility in the city and convert another factory into a future assembly plant for the cheap grand cherokee it will also build a new full sized cheap s.u.v.

and plug in hybrid models chrysler said it's negotiate negotiating tax incentive packages for detroit and the state of michigan construction is expected to start later this year the first new vehicles are to roll off the assembly line in twenty twenty. joins us now from new york for more on this out fear chrysler is announcing big production plans and adding thousands of jobs at a time or its peers like ford and g.m. are scaling back both those things so what do you think it's doing right. well we are talking mostly s.u.v.s no cero keys and those big cars are more profitable than small of the cold send those vehicles that chrysler is planning to produce in detroit will be mostly for the u.s. market so therefore it might make sense to produce those cars there within the united states we do not have details yet on incentives that the state of michigan

and the city of detroit will probably offer for chrysler but in general it's good news for the region actually it will be the first big new assembly plant in detroit just since nineteen ninety one we also got some pretty upbeat comments from the unions who over there and if we look at wall street well investing more means higher costs and therefore the stock of chrysler dropped by a good one and a half percent here on tuesday now there is also a raft of economic data out today on your side of the world fresh figures showing weekend house building among a long time now is that a sign of slowing momentum in the u.s. well at least it seems to be the case for the u.s. housing market in the past couple of years we see in prices rising and at the same time also mortgage rates are on their way up at least they have been in the past

year and that is a tough combination for the u.s. housing industry for homebuilders so we got the new figures for housing starts they dropped by eleven percent to the lowest level in a good two years and we specially saw stocks in the housing sector trading to the downside here on tuesday. to there on wall street for us thank you very much. record figures for a french auto giant p.s.a. with net profit rising forty seven percent to two point eight billion dollars and twenty eighteen that's after nearly twenty years of losses c.e.o. carlist of ours said the company has finally quote found the path to profitability but a caveat that path of profitability could lead it further away from europe and more towards the u.s. . everything's going to plan a p.s.a. but the board says that in the next few years the european market could stagnate

that's why the company wants to boost its sales outside europe by fifty percent by twenty twenty one. i also want to tell you that we have made a decision that this rule will be the brand that we will bring to north america. the u.s. market and or the canadian market. but it's not that long since u.s. president donald trump declared the import of european cars a threat to national security aides threatened to roll out punitive import tariffs on french and german vehicles. and of course because there are still ongoing discussions about tariffs we will wait a few weeks or a few months until we see clearly what are the targets that will come out of those discussions and that we call for that all business plans are flying and they will fly because we are extremely frugal and extremely creative. until noon to

see over here say had stressed that he had no problem with pursuing a missive cost cutting agenda that course is now bearing fruit net profits have jumped forty percent and even the formerly struggling opel is back in the black the long standing german carmakers shed around four thousand jobs in the past year book all now plans to go international again but this time its target market is not north america but russia. north korea and the u.s. are gearing up for their second summit and vietnam's capital had no way the thawing relations not only between north korea and the u.s. but also with south korea has sparked an unlikely boom the so-called demilitarized zone between the two koreas is becoming prime real estate more and more investors are moving in. it may not look like there's much here but kim ensue is convinced he's walking on

a gold mine. and over there behind those hills is the thirty eighth parallel from here it's about five kilometers to the demilitarized zone and then another four kilometers to north korea. the village of hemmer who lies in the civilian control zone. a buffer strip south of the demilitarized zone that separates north and south korea you can only enter here with this special permit. that hasn't stopped him in sioux from buying up some six hectares of land here more than a decade ago since then he says it's more than tripled in price to some four hundred thousand euros and he thinks the best is yet to come. from that train station over there you will soon be able to go to pyongyang london moscow beijing anywhere you want to go in the very near future when people see the train lights they will say oh this train is going to london this one to germany. we're going to

get to the right now it still takes a lot of imagination to see a bustling border town come to life here but like a means to people and haemorrhage village have their eyes set on the u.s. north korea summit positive signs could give prices here a real push. after the first direct meeting of south korea's president moon and north korea's leader kim jong un last april land value here doubled overnight not that makes you want to invest good luck finding a seller because no one here is putting their property on the market right now. but if someone does. knows where to find them. he runs a real estate agency in the nearby city of pod jew he too foresee a bright future in the war i'm going to. top when i'm not only myself but also many of my clients are optimistic about the second summit what i want for expectations

are met then many more people will come here not only to invest but also to live in this area. that's also what clients are banking on they hope the government will develop this area and create special economic zones once relations with the north permit if they ever permit that is. any type of investment is risky but i'm optimistic about this area sometimes the relations between south and north korea will fluctuate but in the long run they will improve. after the summit in hanoi investors here will likely see clearer if the risks they've taken will be rewarded any time soon. and that's our business update don't forget you can always get more on our website dot com slash business or follow us on facebook and on

twitter we'll leave you now with a quick check on global markets i'm going out to my lot in berlin thank you for watching.

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