Carmaker suspends assembly of the Mazda 3 due to flaw in approval process
Mazda Motor Corp has stopped production of a popular new model because of disputes among its mainland partners, dealing a blow to its ambitions for the booming market, sources said yesterday.
On Friday, Mazda announced in Tokyo it had temporarily suspended manufacturing of the Mazda 3 compact car due to a flaw in the process to acquire government approval for the model's production.
It began production on February 27 with great fanfare at its joint venture in Chongqing with Changan Auto and Ford Motor, at a ceremony attended by the city's mayor and Changan's chairman.
It was targeting sales in China this year of 20,000 Mazda 3s at a price of about 178,000 yuan each to compete with Nissan's Sunny, Toyota's Corolla and Volkswagen's Bora. It launched the model at the Beijing Auto Show on March 8.
The suspension is a serious setback to Mazda's plan to expand its share of the Chinese market. Its target is 300,000 vehicles by 2010, triple last year's sales of 134,00, which was itself an increase of 51 per cent over 2004 and double the rate of growth for the passenger car market as a whole.
He Miao, an official at Mazda's public relations division, said the firm hoped to resume production as soon as possible but that it had no timetable. She did not elaborate.
