GM and Opel CEOs to meet German leader Merkel on Thursday

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson and the new head of GM's Opel unit will visit Chancellor Angela Merkel next Thursday, along with members of the GM board, a German government spokesman said on Friday.

Akerson and Opel's chief executive Karl-Thomas Neumann will visit Merkel in Berlin on Thursday at 3 p.m. (10 a.m. ET) for an hour, said government spokesman Georg Streiter, adding that the meeting coincided with a meeting of the GM board in Germany.

Last month employees at Opel's Bochum plant in western Germany rejected a restructuring deal agreed by union leaders and management, which would have kept the plant open through the end of 2016 on significantly reduced staff numbers.

This could lead to the plant's closing at the end of next year.

(Reporting by Stephen Brown; Editing by Noah Barkin)