BMW, the world's largest premium carmaker, has said several hundred staff have agreed redundancy packages under a plan to cut thousands of jobs to improve profitability.

BMW also reaffirmed its forecasts for the full year, which include record sales volumes for all three brands.

"Excluding the exceptional gain on the Rolls-Royce exchangeable bond in 2007, we are aiming for higher pretax earnings in 2008 than 2007," chief executive Norbert Reithofer said in a statement ahead of the annual shareholder meeting.

The company, which builds Mini and Rolls-Royce cars in the UK, did not give an exact number of permanent employees who had agreed to redundancy.

The Munich-based group is aiming to cut 8,100 jobs worldwide, including 3,100 permanent staff as it seeks to improve profitability.

Voluntary redundancies are key as the carmaker has a labour accord stopping it laying off German employees through to the end of 2013.

The cuts are intended to generate annual savings of 500 million euros (£394 million) starting in 2009. BMW wants to reduce its initially budgeted costs by six billion euros (£4.72 billion) by 2012.

Mr Reithofer also repeated his promise to increase the level of shareholders' participation in the success of BMW.

"We see the higher dividend for the financial year 2007 as being the first step," he said. BMW planned to distribute 694 million euros (£550 million) for 2007, with the dividend up 51 per cent at 1.06 euros for each common share.

BMW added it had not decided whether to buy back up to ten per cent of its share capital, a step proposed to shareholders.

Mr Reithofer also said the company plans to shift more of its purchasing to North America to offset the impact of the weak US dollar.

Exchange rate fluctuations are estimated to have cost BMW about 500 million euros (£394 million) last year.

Commenting on the global financial market crisis, Mr Reithofer said he could not rule out a further hit on the company's North American operations due to slumping used car prices. But Mr Reithofer affirmed BMW expects to post a full-year pretax profit above last year's level of 3.78 billion euros (£3 bilion), with the number of cars sold rising from 2007's 1.5 million.