Four of world’s biggest carmakers will be forced to shut down European production, one of the sector’s key suppliers has warned, after an electronics factory in Lombardy was forced to close by the Italian authorities amid the rapid spread of the coronavirus. Electronics manufacturer MTA said that if its 600 employees in the northern Italian town of Codogno were not allowed to return to work within days, production lines at Fiat Chrysler (FCA) subsidiaries would be brought to a standstill. “All the other FCA plants in Europe and those of Renault, BMW and Peugeot will close too,” MTA said. Maria Vittoria Falchetti, MTA board member and granddaughter of the company’s founder, told the Financial Times that the factory’s closure “is going to have a disastrous impact on the global supply chain”.
Ms Falchetti said that the factory had been shut since 10pm last Friday after the first infections were discovered. MTA has pleaded with the Lombardy regional authorities to be allowed to reopen to deliver manufactured goods, but has been refused. “We have been asking the authorities but they are not listening to us. If we were allowed to at least run at 10 per cent capacity then we would at least be able to then deliver what is already in our warehouse to minimise the disruption, but they have said no,” she said. MTA’s statement marks the first forecast of a shutdown at a large German carmaker’s domestic sites.
Coronavirus has affected European carmakers’ production lines in China since last month, but the knock-on effect on the continent’s local suppliers is only now beginning to be felt, as large stockpiles helped manufacturers weather delivery constraints.