Honda halts China plants amid parts-factory strike

Honda Motor Co., Japan's second- biggest carmaker, halted production at its four Chinese auto plants after workers at a parts factory went on strike amid wage negotiations.

Honda closed two plants in Guangzhou, Guangdong province on May 24 and plants in Guangzhou and Wuhan, Hubei province, on May 26, Tomoko Uchida, a spokeswoman for the Tokyo-based company, said by phone today.

Workers making transmissions and engine parts at Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Co. in Foshan, Guangdong province, went on strike May 17, said Zhu Linjie, a Beijing-based spokesman for Honda.

The car factories have a combined annual production capacity of 650,000 units a year. Honda doesn't yet know how much output is being lost to the strike or when production may resume, Uchida said.

Honda fell 0.4 percent to 2,732 yen as of 9:28 a.m. in Tokyo trading. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average declined 0.6 percent.