Hyundai forced to pause production due to a shortage of parts

MANILA: The outbreak of Coronavirus in China has affected the Asian country big time, and the dent has also made its way to the automobile industry. Automakers like Ford, PSA, Nissan, Honda, Tesla, and many others have already put locks on their production facilities following the Chinese government's instructions. Besides that, it is not only the Chinese automobile manufacturing plants that have incurred the affected of Coronavirus as automakers like Hyundai has also been left with no other option than to put the curtains down of its production facilities in South Korea.

Since Hyundai imports parts for its vehicles from China, the automaker is facing a shortage of various important parts and, as a result, paused the production for a while. Hyundai will pause the production lines from the 7th of February to February 11 or 12. Earlier, the South Korean automaker had already halted the production of its Palisade SUV due to a shortage of wiring harnesses that its imports from China. Hyundai doesn't store a large stock of the parts that it imports from China, and that has now affected the production lines of the automaker.

"Hyundai and Kia may be more affected as they tend to import more parts from China than other global automakers. South Korean parts makers followed and built their own facilities along with Hyundai", said Lee Hang-koo, a senior researcher at Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade. If we go by various reports, South Korea highly relies on parts coming from China as the country imported parts worth as much as US$1.47 billion in 2018 and US$1.56 billion in 2019.

The Coronavirus outbreak is certainly going to affect numerous various industries and departments until a cure is found, and the monetary loss is going to be significant, especially for China. Nevertheless, no money is more significant than the lives of our fellow human beings, right? Automakers and other industrialists may incur losses due to the disruption, but for now, we should pray for the innocent lives to be saved. Money can be always made later as well.

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