The Dacia plant in Mioveni, southern Romania, started the year with a decline of more than 8% in the number of cars assembled, to almost 26,300 units.
All Dacia models besides Logan MCV saw lower production volumes. Logan MCV’s production increased because assembly of the discontinued first generation stopped in the second half of 2012.
Logan and Sandero saw the steepest decline, 30%, while production of Duster SUV only dropped by less than 2% to 9,700 units.
Ford’s production in Craiova, southern Romania, rose 5% to 6,520 B-Max cars. Production at this plant increased even though car assembly started two days later than engine manufacturing, on January 8 instead of January 6. The plant could have turned out more than 700 cars in the two days.
However, even though production at Ford did increase in January, the company decided to halt production for four days in February, in each Friday of this month, giving employees longer weekends. It could have assembled almost 1,500 extra cars worth EUR22 million in the four days of February.
Last year was Ford’s first full year of manufacturing in Romania, when it assembled 68,400 B-Max cars and produced 250,000 engines in Craiova.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)