March 31 (SeeNews) - Kostal Bulgaria Automotive, a unit of German car parts manufacturer Kostal, has suspended production at its plant in Pazardzhik as orders from its customers dwindled due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, local media reported.
"We work with all European car manufacturers. If orders from the big car manufacturing plants decrease this will immediately affect us and the whole economy," news outlet Dnevnik.bg quoted plant manager Atanas Kachakov as saying on Monday.
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As of March 30, the company has put on leave 2,000 employees at the plant in Pazardzhik, in southern Bulgaria, until April 19, Dnevnik.bg said.
Last year, Bulgaria's government said that Kostal Bulgaria Automotive has opened a new manufacturing unit at its Pazardzhik plant and plans to hire some 1,000 employees at the new unit by the end of 2019. The plant in Pazardzhik produces annually around 250,000 steering wheels for Volkswagen and around 100,000 for BMW, prime minister Boyko Borissov said back then.
The manfacturing facility in Pazardzhik opened in 2017. It is Kostal's third production plant in Bulgaria. The plant manufactures automotive components for brands such as Peugeot, Volkswagen, Porsche and others.
Kostal Bulgaria Automotive is just one of the companies in the country's automotive sector that have halted operations since the outbreak of the coronavirus diesease in Europe. Last week, the Bulgarian machine building industry chamber (BBCMB) said that the local units of German vehicle access systems manufacturer WITTE Automotive and French auto parts manufacturer Montupet will suspend operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to BBCMB, car parts suppliers are in a complicated situation as car manufacturers across Europe are suspending operations. Furthermore, suppliers cannot provide the appropriate safe working conditions for their employees in the context of the pandemic.
As of Thursday, there were 399 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Bulgaria, including eight deaths and 15 recoveries. Since March 13 Bulgaria has been in a state of emergency over the infectious disease outbreak.
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