Fuyao Glass halts two glass production lines

Shanghai, November 11 (Gasgoo.com) Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co, China's largest automotive glass maker, will halt two building glass production lines due to the falling market demand, and will be unlikely to reach its net profit growth target this year as car sales slow down, said xinhuanet.com today.

The global financial crisis has led to weakening demand for building and auto glass materials. As a result, Fuyao Glass is forced to decrease its output by halting its two building float glass production lines -- one in Fuqing city, Fujian, with a daily melting output of 600 tons and the other in Shuangliao city, Jilin, with a daily melting output of 460 tons. The assets of the two production lines are evaluated at 250 million yuan ($36.6 million) to 300 million yuan.    

Fuyao Glass may not be able to meet its previous target of 40 to 50 percent net profit growth this year as car sales slow, its chairman said recently. Previously, the company had expected to have a net profit of more than 1 billion yuan ($146.3 million) this year. But now that seems unlikely, the chairman said.

The glass maker has also stopped investing in new capacity since the first half of the year. Fuyao previously had sought to buy auto glass assets from Ford Motor in the United States, but now is no longer interested in investing in U.S. auto glass assets.