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Coronavirus: Shanghai’s vehicle assemblies sit idle as ‘China’s Motown’ is paralysed by a citywide lockdown to curb the Covid-19’s spread
- Shanghai is China’s “Motown,” churning out 2.83 million vehicles in 2021, or 10.7 per cent of the nationwide output in the world’s largest vehicle market
- SAIC Motor, China’s largest state-owned carmaker, said it would conduct a stress test on Monday to resume production
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Shanghai’s automotive industry is teetering on the edge of a precipice, as a citywide lockdown amid a Covid-19 outbreak idled assemblies and component makers that together produced one in every nine of the automobiles produced in China last year.
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Automakers may have to stop all production by May if the supply chain disruptions caused by Shanghai’s lockdowns are not resolved soon, according to a blog post by Xpeng’s co-founder and chief executive He Xiaopeng, whose company assembles smart electric cars in the Guangdong provincial city of Zhaoqing.
“It is quite likely that all of China’s vehicle assemblers will have to suspend production in May if the supply chain [vendors] based in Shanghai and its neighbouring areas cannot restart operations,” He wrote on Weibo. “The good news is that some ministries and relevant authorities are trying to coordinate. We hope a concerted effort can be made to support the industry.”
Shanghai, the financial and commercial centre of China, is also the country’s “Motown,” churning out 2.83 million vehicles in 2021, or 10.7 per cent of the nationwide output in the world’s largest vehicle market. Jilin in northeastern China assembled 2.42 million units last year, or 9.2 per cent of the national total.
The automotive industry is also one of the country’s biggest employers, providing jobs for one in every six of the country’s workforce of 800 million people, according to analysts’ estimates.
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