Nissan: no plans to shift to Eastern Europe

Written by: S.M.Mehdi Hassan
Nissan Motor Corporation, Japan’s top automobile producer, has decided to stay in England. Now days, there is a growing trend among automobile manufacturers in Europe to shift their factories in Eastern Europe because of cheap labor and growing car market. Companies like KIA, Toyota, and Hyundai are making plans to shift their plants in Czech Republic, Prague, and Slovakia. However, Nissan Motor Corporation’s Senior Vice-President, Colin Dodge assured that Nissan would not move its headquarter from Sunderland, in northeast England. Collin said this on Monday in an Interview with Reuters. He also said that it is easy to make some short term gains from the shifting of manufacturing plants to another country but Nissan has been supplying cars in England for the last twenty years and it has now became one of the biggest car producers (4.1 million cars, one fifth of the total car production) in England and one of England’s biggest employers. He also mentioned that if such trend continues among automobile producers then it will seriously hamper the supply of automobiles in Western Europe.
According to the Reuters report, KIA, an affiliate of Hyundai and one of the fastest growing automobile companies in Europe has decided to build a plant in Slovakia and produce 300,000 mid sized cars by 2009. Hyundai also decided to build another plant in the Czech Republic.
Dodge said that Europe has the toughest automobile market in the world. There are many world class manufacturers who produce good quality products but he is optimistic that Nissan would steer clear the obstacles and would remain very competitive in the coming years.

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