Two Chinese auto plants run by German automaker Volkswagen AG through joint ventures are planning to partly suspend production lines to conduct maintenance work, state television reported yesterday.
The news comes amid a huge slump in sales of vehicles in China, the world’s second-largest vehicle market after the US.
China’s CCTV said in its midday bulletin that FAW-Volkswagen Automobile Co plans to suspend part of its production at a plant in Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province in northeastern China, at the end of the year to carry out maintenance.
Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Co will also suspend work at its production line for half a month from sometime next week to early next month, the Beijing News Daily reported.
The reports did not give details and calls to Volkswagen’s office in Beijing and the two joint venture companies rang unanswered yesterday.
Volkswagen sold about 910,000 vehicles to customers in China last year.
Vehicle sales in China fell 16 percent last month — a sharp reverse for China’s automakers, which saw sales grow by 18.5 percent last year. Global automakers were counting on fast-growing Chinese sales to help drive revenue growth as sales elsewhere weakened.
Industry Minister Li Yizhong (李毅中) said on Friday Beijing is considering ways to revive sales including cutting taxes, offering low-interest loans or forcing older vehicles off the road.
Separately, Toyota Motor Corp. will delay investment in boosting capacity at its overseas factories as declining sales and a strengthening yen reduce earnings, the Nikkei Shimbun reported.
The automaker will freeze investment in a plant in Tianjin, China that makes Crown sedans and delay starting operations at a factory in Changchun until after 2011, the Nikkei reported without saying where it obtained the information.
The company, based in Toyota City, Japan, will also delay making Corolla cars in Brazil and India, the Nikkei said.
“We have been reviewing our new projects including in India, Brazil, China and the US, as we announced on Nov. 6,” Hideaki Homma, spokesman for Toyota, said yesterday.
“Nothing has been decided. We will report if there are any changes to plans,” he said.
Toyota has been spending ¥1.5 trillion annually (US$16.46 billion) on new facilities worldwide in the past few years, the Nikkei said.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
RSS