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Honda to end car production in Argentina

Honda has announced it will cease local production of cars in Argentina from 2020.


The company's factory in Campana, about an hour north of the capital Buenos Aires, was opened in 2006 as a motorcycle plant, with car production beginning in 2011.

Currently the facility manufactures the HR-V crossover, as well as the CG150, Wave and XR150L motorcycles. While production of the HR-V will end next year, bike production will continue.

Honda will carry on selling and servicing new cars in Argentina after it ceases local manufacturing.

Honda's car plant in neighbouring Brazil, which is capable of making 120,000 vehicles per year, is unaffected by today's announcement. Both Brazil and Argentina are part of the Mercosur free-trade zone.

The South American region is going through an economic slump at the moment. Argentina in particular is having a tough time of it with the country suffering an inflation rate of around 54 per cent this year.

Due to the results of a recent presidential primary election, the sharemarket has fallen almost 35 per cent and the peso has been devalued by roughly 24 per cent in the last few days.

Honda was careful not to blame local economic conditions for its announcement, blaming instead "abrupt changes occurring to automobile industries around the world".

As a result, the company is "pursuing optimisation of automobile production allocation and production capacity on a global basis".

In addition to ending car manufacturing in Argentina, Honda announced in February it would close its Swindon, UK, factory in 2021 when production of the current-generation Civic hatch ends.

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