Germany plans aid for non-ferrous metals -report

HAMBURG, June 19 (Reuters) - Germany's government plans a special aid programme of 40 million euros ($56 million) to help the country's non-ferrous metal industry survive the economic slowdown, a minister was quoted on Friday as saying. The ruling coalition has agreed in principle to make the aid available to the aluminium, zinc and copper industries, said Hermann Goehe, a minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel's chancellery ministry. The money would be used to help energy-intensive industries, he told the online edition of daily Neuss-Grevenbroicher Zeitung. Goehe is also the member of parliament for Neuss, where Hydro Aluminium, the German unit of Norwegian group Norsk Hydro, may stop production at its loss-making aluminium plant in June if talks to cut power supply costs are not successful. Details of an aid programme which conforms with European Union rules will now be worked out by the government, Goehe told the newspaper. Hydro Aluminium had said in January it might close Neuss, one of west Europe's largest primary aluminium plants, this summer because of high German power costs. It also announced output cuts as the plant was losing around 300,000 euros a day.