Nissan Motor Corporation is closing its Spanish production facility and moving its Indonesian plant to Thailand, the company’s chief executive officer announced.
Makoto Uchida said the company reported a JPY671.2bn ($6.2bn) loss at the end of FY2019, which ended March 31, 2020.
The company controls 75pc of PT Nissan Motor Indonesia, which has an annual capacity of 260,000 units. Nisan’s decision to close its Barcelona operations was made despite local authorities’ proposals to keep it afloat, which sparked protests outside the facility.
The carmaker was forced to temporarily close plants around the world, including in Sunderland, UK, when the pandemic hit. Production in Sunderland, which produces the Qashqai and Juke SUVs and the Leaf electric car, is scheduled to restart in early June. Uchida noted that the Sunderland plant, which has the capacity to produce up to 520,000 units per annum, will be the centre of its European production base.
The company also operates the wholly owned subsidiary Nissan Motor Ibérica in Avila and Barcelona, which have the capacities to produce 120,000 units a year.
The Japanese car producer plans to relocate production of the Navara pickup to South Africa, while a replacement for the e-NV200 van would be built at Renault’s plant in Maubeuge, France, according to reports.
The global restructuring strategy includes a planned reduction of global production capacity by about a fifth to help cut JPY300bn in fixed costs to tackle the negative impact of COVID-19 on vehicle sales.