Obama: Confident GM will rise again

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US President Barack Obama says he is confident General Motors will emerge quickly from bankruptcy.

Obama says painful concessions by labor and creditors resulted in a viable and achievable plan for GM to complete its restructuring and give it a chance to succeed.

Just hours after GM sought bankruptcy protection in New York, Obama remarked at the White House that with the assistance that his government has offered, GM will rise again.

Barack Obama, US President, said, "I am absolutely confident that if well-managed, a new GM will emerge that can out-compete automakers around the world and that can once again be an integral part of America's economic future."

GM is being kept alive by US government funding. A White House-appointed task force hammered out a sweeping reorganization, greased with 50 billion dollars in assistance.

The US government will take a 60 percent stake in a reformed GM. Analysts say the Obama administration is betting taxpayer money that the automaker can eventually break even.

President Barack Obama makes remarks on the American automotive industry and the bankruptcy of GM as he stands with his automotive task force in the Grand Foyer of the White House in Washington, June 1, 2009. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Critics have questioned the US move to take such risk. But some have admitted the move was necessary to prevent industry collapse and serious harm to the US economy.

Ross Eisenbrey, Economic Policy Institute, said, "The Economic Policy Institute did a study of what would happen if GM were liquidated and the loss of jobs would have been catastrophic. In an economy that is already hurting, it probably would have meant another million jobs."

GM alone employs 92-thousand people in the US and is indirectly responsible for 500-thousand retirees.

US officials say there is no plan to provide any further funding for GM and insist that all of the Detroit Three can survive.