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.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique