Although sales in mature regions such as the United States and Western Europe have been on the steady decline for some time now, most of the world’s automakers could fall back on the fact that developing regions were still consuming cars at an incredible rate. However, even automotive hot beds such as China are starting to cool off, and now comes word that even more global markets are starting to slow down.
Ford announced on Monday that it will be halting production at its St. Petersburg production facility for one month. The St. Petersburg plant is Ford’s only in Russia.
“The decision was made due to the situation on the market and declining demand,” Ford spokeswoman Yekaterina Kulinenko told The Detroit News.
The plant was scheduled to be shut down for two weeks later this month in observance of the holiday season, but that break will now be extended by an additional two weeks. The St. Petersburg plant will be idled from December 24th until January 24th.
Ford typically produces 75,000 vehicles annually in Russia, but the Michigan-based automaker failed to release how many vehicles the extended shut down will eliminated from its production schedule.
12/08, 6:31 PM
posted by:
Borat
Oi would not want to work in Russian Ford factory, even if US citizen. When Ford build the first Russian truck factory in 30’s they left 300-500 employees behind. Nobody cared about them (certainly not Ford’s HR) and they were dying slowly in Gulag. I saw son of one those workers emigrating to US as full bodied US citizen (which he was).
With any luck when and if the time will come to re-start production most of the factory will be stolen. Nailing things to the floor will not help. Future Secretary of State was learning from Russians how to appropriate White House china.
12/08, 10:27 PM
posted by:
Bimmer
Laugh all you want, but Russia builds and gets proper Focus, unlike Canada and US.
12/09, 3:06 PM
posted by:
yarddog82abn
RUSSIA? WTF? Why can’t we just make the cars state side and export them?
O..ya… that’s right UAW…. O.K. I’m cool…