Australia Won’t Cut Aid to Fading Auto Industry

Australia Prime Minister Tony Abbott has dropped a plan to reduce some A$900 million ($687 million) in aid to carmakers and parts suppliers in the country, Bloomberg News reports.

The last of Australia's local carmakers Ford, General Motors and Toyota plan to shut down by the end of 2017. Abbott's government was voted into power 18 months ago on a platform to eliminate "corporate welfare" for ailing companies. The country's shrinking auto industry currently employs about 50,000 people.

Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane tells reporters the government now wants to provide Australia's auto industry with "certainty" until it vanishes. Local producers have been hurt in recent years by a flood of cheaper foreign-made vehicles.