Ford Motor Company temporarily shut down its production facility in the South American country of Venezuela last week, with plans to keep the plant idling until April of 2017, according to Reuters. The Valencia Assembly Plant is Ford’s only production outpost in the country, and employs more than 2,000 workers.
“It is a measure to adjust production to demand in the country,” Ford South America President Lyle Watters said to reporters at an event in São Paulo. The closure will not have an impact on Ford’s consolidated 2016 business results because, as of the first quarter of this year, Ford’s Venezuelan unit now reports results separate from the rest of the automaker.
Ford’s Valencia Assembly Plant currently builds the Ford Explorer, Fiesta, and F-250 and F-350 Super Duty models, along with a tractor unit called the “Cargo.” Output at the facility is a fraction of that of a typical US plant; total production for 2016 through November stands at just 2,253 units, which works out to an average of less than seven units a day.
Ford is the only automaker that still mass produces vehicles in Venezuela.
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