U.S. automobile giant General Motors has interrupted production of pickup trucks at its plant in Louisiana until March 21 because of the lack of parts for assembly due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
The company said it presently has enough ready-made vehicles for the consumer market and that the remaining plants in North America are continuing production as usual.
On Thursday, Sweden’s Volvo Cars said it had enough parts from Japan to last another week and if parts are not delivered in the near future, plant operations would considerably worsen.
As a result of last week’s 9.0-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami, Japan’s largest automobile production plants have been temporarily taken off line, including Mitsubishi Motors, Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Subaru.
A number of large Japanese electronics companies damaged by the strong earthquake and tsunami last week plan to move part of their production lines to Mexico in the near future, President of the National Chamber of Electronics Industry Fernando Sierra Ortiz said on Friday.
Ortiz said the decision to move production lines to Mexico stems from the necessity to immediately renew the production and constant equipping of elements to the North American market.
According to Japanese authorities, Panasonic has halted production at two plants in Fukushima which produce audio equipment and digital cameras, as well as its plant in Sendai that produces lenses. Canon has closed eight of its plants.
One of the largest producers of photo equipment, Nikon, has temporarily closed five of its lens production plants, including Sendai Nikon, which produces cameras.
Sony has also halted production in several plants, including Sony Shiroishi Semiconductor and Sony Energy Devices, which produces lithium-ion batteries.
MOSCOW, March 18 (RIA Novosti)