Three months after emerging from bankruptcy protection thanks to $50bn in US state funding, General Motors is facing another challenge: how to turn round its ailing South Korean unit.

GM Daewoo, which accounts for about a quarter of the US carmaker’s global production, has been hit hard by a fall in exports and Won2,300bn ($2bn) in currency derivatives losses because of the weaker won. The group lost Won876bn last year and sales fell more than 40 per cent in the first nine months of this year.