Honda's car plants in China to restart production Friday

Shanghai, June 3 (Gasgoo.com) Honda Motor said today that the plants of its three vehicle assembly joint ventures in China will resume production tomorrow (Friday), more than one week after operation was disrupted by a parts shortage caused by workers' strike at a local parts factory, meida reported.

Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co., Honda Automobile (China) Co. and Guangqi Honda Automobile Co. will restart production as the parts supply from Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Co. has resumed after workers at the parts plant ended their walkout. Honda shut two car-assembly plants in Guangzhou, on May 24 and factories in Guangzhou and Wuhan, on May 26.

Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Co's production in Foshan city, Guangdong province, returned to normal on June 1 after falling idle due to the strike starting May 17. The Japanese carmaker has agreed to offer a 24% pay raise to persuade most employees at the parts plant to return to work.

Most of the parts factory's 1,900 workers accepted the offer this week for a pay raise to 1,910 yuan ($280) a month, according to Honda. The employees had demanded between 2,000 yuan and 2,500 yuan. Honda Motor builds about 3,000 vehicles a day in China.

The vehicle assembly factories, joint ventures between Honda and its Chinese partners, make models including the Accord sedan and Civic compact and have combined annual capacity of 650,000 units.