SEOUL – Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea’s biggest carmaker by sales, today said it will suspend operations at one of its domestic plants this week to control inventories amid the Covid-19 pandemic, reported the Yonhap news agency.
The company will halt operations at its Jeonju plant, which produces commercial vehicles, such as buses and trucks, until Friday due to weak demand for these models, it said in a regulatory filing.
Operations will resume next Monday, it said.
Hyundai has adjusted production at its local plants since early last year, when the coronavirus outbreak began to affect sales.
Last month, it suspended operations at its Asan plant, which produces the Sonata and Grandeur sedans, for two weeks through January 6 due to weak Sonata sales.
For the whole of 2020, Hyundai sold 3.74 million vehicles, down 15% from the 4.43 million units a year earlier.
It has set a sales target of 4.16 million units for 2021, including overseas sales of 3.4 million units.
Hyundai has seven domestic plants – five in Ulsan, one in Asan and one in Jeonju – and 10 overseas plants, with four in China and one each in the United States, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Russia, India and Brazil. Their combined capacity is some 5.5 million vehicles. – Bernama, January 4, 2021
