Car-makers in a spin

Toyota Vietnam (TMV), a leading passenger car manufacturer in the Vietnamese market, last week unveiled a plan to curtail production at its manufacturing facility in northern Vinh Phuc province.

The reduction in production will occur from April 25 to June 6, 2011, according to a TMV notice.

TMV’s current assembling capacity is around 30,000 units per year. Around 2,500 units are reportedly not be made under lately TMV’s dwindling production scheme which was expected to badly affect sales of the firm’s current best selling car lines- Toyota Vios and Corolla Atlis.

Though TMV has detailed its production plans to maintain the factory’s overall performance during the aforesaid time, the move would inevitably significantly affect the business of the firm’s accessories and spare part manufacturers which are almost safe from earthquake and tsunami implications as well as its sales agents and consumers themselves.

TMV would incessantly consider spare part supply possibilities and outline suitable production plans to be able to resume production in the shortest possible time, said TMV’s general director Akito Tachibana.

Industry insiders expected that the rolling of US-backed Ford Motor’s Fiesta line in the local market starting from May 2011, a rival of TMV’s Toyota Vios, at the time MTV incurring difficulties in spare part supply, will trigger turbulences in Vietnam’s auto market.

Lately, Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) confirmed that Toyota, Honda, Nissan and other more than 10 Japan’s car brands will measure the radioactive concentrations of export car samples before shipping them abroad.

Meanwhile, although Honda Vietnam (HVN) announced that it had not been impacted by the crisis, the firm is now  weighing up the possibility of sourcing spare parts from other distributors to ensure stable production.