GM: U.S. sales must grow

General Motors Corp. Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer Fritz Henderson said Tuesday that the automaker can't depend solely on emerging markets to achieve a financial turnaround: GM must fix its business at home.

While GM's sales in foreign markets rose to 59% of its sales last year and the automaker reported sales growth in every region except North America, Henderson said emerging markets can't carry GM. We’ve got to get the job done in the United States," Henderson said while addressing a luncheon meeting of the Automotive Press Association on Tuesday at the Detroit Athletic Club. "We've improved a lot from 2005, but if you look back at 2005, our results were a disaster, any way you look at it."

GM lost about $12.4 billion in 2005 and 2006.

While the automaker has cut $9 billion in annual fixed costs since 2005 and says a new UAW contract is expected to cut its labor costs by another $5 billion by 2011, the job is not done.

GM is scheduled to report 2007 earnings, and likely its largest loss ever, on Feb. 12. The automaker recorded a $39-billion net loss, primarily because of a tax accounting rule, in the third quarter of the year. More at Detroit Free Press