Esztergom Suzuki Plant Does Not Ship to Russia, Ukraine

Magyar Suzuki has announced that it stopped exporting cars to Russia and Ukraine from March because of the war, the company said in response to questions from Reuters news agency, the financial news site portfolio.hu reports.

The company used to sell around 10,000 new cars a year in the two countries and now wants to sell its "remaining" vehicles in other markets, planning to ensure that this redirection does not affect production levels at the plant. For this reason, production at the Esztergom unit, NW of Budapest, will continue to run in two shifts, according to the announcement.

The company said that the biggest challenge remains the chip shortage, but that it is working to address this, and that the Esztergom unit's operations are also being negatively affected by the surge in energy prices and the weakening of the forint. They added that they are trying to mitigate the cost-increasing impact of all these, but at some point they will lead to an increase in new car sales prices.