Tofaş to suspend production for 9 days in Bursa plant due to market shrinkage

ISTANBUL

Tofaş, a joint venture between Fiat and Turkey’s Koç Holding, has said it will suspend production in its key plant for a nine-day period, citing shrinkage in the domestic market.

“Production will be suspended for nine days [not consecutively] during October in the Bursa Plant due to recent contraction in the domestic market,” the company said in a statement to the Public Disclosure Platform late on Sept. 26.

Some employees will be on duty during the period, it added.

Turkey’s passenger car and light commercial vehicle sales fell 53 percent from a year earlier to 34,346 vehicles in August, the Automotive Distributors Association (ODD) has said.

In a monthly sector statement, the association said on Sept. 4 that the market lagged by 43.7 percent behind the last decade monthly average, which is composed of 60,951 units.

While 26,976 passenger cars were sold in August by a 50.9 percent yearly decline, a total of 7,370 light commercial vehicles were sold by a 58.2 percent decrease compared to the same month of 2017.

In the January-August period, sales decreased 21 percent year-on-year to 440,428 vehicles, the association added, with an average 18.5 percent contraction in the passenger car market.