BMW has criticised the state aid offered to US carmakers as distorting competition.

The carmaker's head of sales and marketing, Ian Robertson, said if funds are made available to American domestic carmakers the same programmes should be available to other manufacturers in the US. BMW has an assembly plant at Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Robertson also criticised the notion of one-off loans from the UK government for Jaguar Land Rover.

"If there are offers on the table they should be offered to everyone," he told today's Financial Times. He said BMW Group employed more people at its UK plants in Swindon, Goodwood and Oxford than Jaguar Land Rover did.