Nissan Motor is to shut car assembly plants in Mexico for several weeks during the first quarter as demand falls in the recession-hit US.
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Nissan, Mexico’s second-largest automaker behind General Motors, will halt output for 26 days during the first quarter at its Aguascalientes plant, a spokesman told Reuters.
“We will have to see if these stoppages are enough or if there is necessity for more,” he added.
Falling demand in the United States, Mexico’s top export market, is expected to reduce domestic vehicle output by 20% in 2009, auto industry group AMIA told the news agency.
Aguascalientes builds Sentra and Versa [Tiida] models for export and, if the US recession deepened further, Nissan might have to lay off some of the 6,000 workers there, the spokesman said.
Nissan will also stop work for 12 days in the coming weeks at its Cuernavaca plant which makes the Tsuru model mostly for the Mexican market, which has also been hit by the global slowdown.
