Gasgoo.com (Shanghai May 13) - Since last month, production at Guangqi Honda has been halted, sources from the joint venture informed Gasgoo.com (Chinese). Guangqi Honda Public Relations Directory Wen Yuzhou said that the JV ordered the production halt in order to upgrade its factory in Huangpu District, Guangzhou. The stop in production is scheduled to last a total of 16 days.
Several in the industry originally speculated that the order to halt production was made in order to take pressure off the JV's inventories, which have been filled to very high capacity due to decreasing sales. Mr. Wen denied this rumor, saying that sales flow was still normal.
Guangqi Honda currently possesses two major production sites. According to reports, the Huangpu factory has currently been working overtime, with a daily production rate of 1,000 units.
According to its recently released monthly performance review, Guangqi Honda sold a total of 34,581 vehicles last month, increasing 51.2 percent from last April. However, growth in the Chinese automobile market as a whole has been slowing down, with China Association of Automobile Manufacturers statistics showing that the total number of vehicles sold from January to April was 1.33 percent than the number sold in the first four months of 2011.
