Flooding in Thailand has forced all nine Japanese automakers to halt manufacturing, cutting production by a total of 6,000 units a day, an industry leader said on Oct. 20.
Toshiyuki Shiga, chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, said all nine Japanese automakers operating in Thailand had halted production after the floods. "Of the nine companies, which have halted plants, eight have done so because they could not procure parts sufficiently," he said.
Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi are among the Japanese companies which have stopped production in Thailand.
Shiga, who is also Nissan's chief operating officer, said the parts makers were considering moving production elsewhere or shipping them in from other countries, including Japan.
According to his association, Japanese motor companies produced about 1.6 million units in Thailand last year.
Sony said flooding had halted production at the company's manufacturing base in Ayutthaya and its contracted plants and parts suppliers in the country. The company said that it had planned to put on the market two types of digital single-lens reflex cameras on November 11 but the new launch date has yet to be decided. The company had also planned to launch different types of headphones on November 10 and 21. Some of the models will be marketed instead on December 10 but the new launch date for the others will be decided later.
Sony has three manufacturing plants in Thailand. Operations at the Ayutthaya plant, which produces digital cameras, has been halted since October 11 as flooding disrupted the supply of parts and prevented workers from coming to work, Sony spokeswoman Satsuki Shinnaka said.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2011
