Tavares, speaking alongside British business minister Greg Clark, said the country still needed to do work to ensure there would be frictionless trade with the EU after Brexit in March next year.

But Peugeot was agile enough to take risks in a world where Brexit was far from being the only source of political uncertainty, and a decision on van production at Vauxhall's plant in Luton, southern England, could not wait, he added.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas, writing by David Milliken; editing by Stephen Addison)