Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has announced emergency loans of around four billion dollars, to Canadian subsidiaries of the Big Three of US automakers.

Harper made it clear that not just the companies, but also their employees, must make concessions in order to get the loans.

Harper's announcement followed a similar move by the US administration to help General Motors and Chrysler with a bailout package totaling 17.4 billion US dollars.

(CCTV December 22, 2008)