Receiver Stephen Longley confirmed the immediate retrenchment of 208 workers who will receive none of their entitlements but can seek government assistance.

Those workers continuing with DSI won’t be paid until March 9 and if production can’t resume on that date they will be paid 70 per cent of their wages in the interim and offered a $700 loan.

Mr Longley has offered them jobs for only eight weeks but hopes Ford will want a continuing supply of gearboxes and that work will continue after that, hopefully under a new owner of the factory.

He remains confident of selling the factory as a going concern and hopes that SsangYong and Mahindra & Mahindra will resume orders from it in due course.

A return of such orders would allow the workforce to grow again, he said.

Ford’s orders for four-speed gearboxes for gas-powered cars were suspended when the factory ceased production on February 16.

In a significant move, Mr Longley said the new production line for six-speed gearboxes for front-wheel-drive SsangYong vehicles could be converted for use for another manufacturer.

It would cost an estimated $15 million to complete the line but Mr Longley said it was not the case that the line would be wasted.

Meanwhile, the team at the factory is desperately trying to negotiate the necessary supplies to resume production as soon as possible.

“There are about 60 different suppliers,’’ Mr Longley said.

“Two-thirds of them are fine and some of the others are more difficult, because some of them are owed money.”

He would give no clue about a likely selling price for the company, which DSI bought from the ION Ltd receivers for $48 million three years ago, though he has spent about that much again on development.

DSI is insolvent owing the banks $40 million to $50 million and trade suppliers about $20 million, while entitlements owed to all workers amount to $25 million and won’t be paid.

please keep next par as isMr Longley said the company had “a book value’’ of $108 million but the likely price if the company is wound up and liquidated is thought to be far less than that.

He said a buyer must be assured of producing a large volume of units in the long-term future and he saw the Ford work as “a bridge’’ to that future.

A meeting of creditors will be held in Melbourne today.

More reports in today's Border Mail