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		</div><p><a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/car-industry-recovery-drives-gkn.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full" title="Car parts and engineering firm GKN returned to the black" src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/min-car-industry-recovery-drives-gkn.jpg" alt="Car parts and engineering firm GKN returned to the black"/></a></p>
<p>Car parts and engineering firm GKN has returned to the black as its automotive arm benefited from a recovery in the global car market.</p>
<p>Its Driveline business, which makes driveshafts for almost half of new cars, saw sales increase by 35% as strong demand in China, India and North America pushed global sales of light vehicles up 24%.</p>
<p>The strong performance of Driveline, which has sites in Redditch and Birmingham, helped GKN make bottom-line pre-tax profits of £345 million in 2010 compared to a loss of £54 million a year ago, while revenues increased 20% to £5.1 billion.</p>
<p>GKN expects a 5% increase in global car and van sales in 2011 although the Western European market is expected to be flat as the withdrawal of Government car scrappage schemes hits sales.</p>
<p>Other parts of GKN&#8217;s business also benefited from the global economic recovery.</p>
<p>The group&#8217;s powder metal technology arm, which provides components for manufacturers, saw sales increase by 48% in 2010, while its land system business, which supplies products to heavy industry and agriculture, was up 18%.</p>
<p>Sales through its aerospace arm, which makes fuselage, fan blades and cockpit windshields from sites including Yeovil, Luton, Derby, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, declined by 2% and are not expected to return to growth until 2012.</p>
<p>GKN said its civil aerospace division is expected to grow this year as Boeing and Airbus step up production but this will be offset by declining sales to the military.</p>
<p>The group, which was badly hit by the global economic downturn, has stripped out costs with a major redundancy programme since November 2008. This saw 15 factory closures and 7,000 of its 42,000 staff go, including 560 in the UK &#8211; although employee numbers have since climbed to 40,000.</p>
<p>GKN added to its UK personnel in 2008 after buying Airbus&#8217;s Filton site and now has 6,000 UK employees.</p>
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