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Japan's Honda to close China plant, halt production at another factory

Japan's Honda Motor will close a factory in China and halt automobile production at another plant, the automaker stated on Thursday, as it looks for to start producing more electrical lorries in the middle of heavy competitors from Chinese brands.

Honda will close a plant run through its joint venture ( JV) with Chinese state-owned automaker Guangzhou Car Group in October, a company spokesperson said.

The automaker has made the Accord sedan model at the plant, which was opened nearly two decades earlier and has a yearly production capability of 50,000 cars.

Honda will stop briefly production at another factory in China it runs through a separate JV with Dongfeng from November, the representative said, including that the website has a yearly production capability of 240,000 vehicles.

Honda looks for to optimise its output in China with the changes, the representative stated, including that it deals with hard conditions in the Chinese auto market, the world's biggest.

The company's annual production capacity in China will shrink to 1.2 million automobiles from 1.49 million as an outcome of the blockages, the spokesperson included.

It plans to bring it back up to 1.44 million vehicles by starting production at two EV plants it is presently developing through its JVs with GAC and Dongfeng. The business intends to begin production at both new plants later this year.

Chinese automakers have actually made big inroads in winning over domestic customers with low-priced, software-loaded lorries.

Honda and Nissan Motor are among Japanese brand names for which China was a traditionally strong market however that are now taking a big hit from the rise of domestic automakers.

Nissan and Honda stated in March they were thinking about a. tactical collaboration to work together on producing EV components. and expert system in automotive software platforms.

The Nikkei service daily initially reported Honda's strategy to. slash its annual production capability in China previously on. Thursday.

(source: Reuters)