Ford Otosan, Tofaş to suspend production next month

ISTANBUL

Carmakers Ford Otosan and Tofaş will suspend production next month to carry out maintenance work and due to annual vacation at their plants, the companies have announced.

“Due to the planned annual leave and maintenance-repair works at our company’s Bursa factory, production will be suspended between Aug. 8 and Aug. 21,” said Tofaş in a filing with Borsa Istanbul.

During this period, carmaker’ employees will use their annual leave progress payments, and only maintenance and revision works will be carried out with the personnel on duty in its factory, Tofaş added.

Another carmaker Ford Otosan said there will be a shutdown period in its plants due to scheduled annual vacation between Aug. 1 and Aug. 25.

“During this time periodical maintenance will take place in all our plants. There will also be preparations in production lines in Yeniköy Plant for new investments,” it said in a statement.

No impact is expected in total production and the total number of sales estimates for 2022, the company added.

The local automotive industry’s output grew by 26.3 percent in June from a year ago to more than 135,000 units, with passenger car production rising nearly 39 percent to 87,000, according to the latest data from the Automotive Manufacturers’ Association (OSD).

Vehicles sales increased by 1.9 percent year-on-year to 85,000 while passenger car sales rose by 2.9 percent to 64,000 units.

In the first half, the industry’s production reached 649,000 vehicles, up 1.5 percent from January-June last year. Passenger car output, however, declined 8 percent on an annual basis to 383,000 units.

The vehicle market shrank 8.8 percent as a total of 376,000 units were sold, while the sales of passenger cars plunged more than 10 percent to 278,000.