Volkswagen China shuts two plants in Tianjin due to COVID-19 outbreaks

BEIJING (Reuters) – Volkswagen Group’s China unit said on Thursday it has shut a plant it jointly runs with FAW Group in the city of Tianjin, as well as a component factory, due to recent COVID-19 outbreaks there.

“Due to the recent COVID-19 outbreaks both the FAW-VW vehicle plant and VW Automatic Transmission Tianjin component factory have been shut down since Monday,” a spokesperson told Reuters.

“Both plants have conducted COVID -19 testing twice for all employees this week and are waiting for the results. We hope to resume production very soon and catch up with lost production. The top priority remains the health and well-being of our employees.”

Tianjin, in northern China around 100 km (62 miles) from the capital Beijing, reported 41 domestically transmitted infections with confirmed symptoms on Wednesday, up from 33 a day earlier, data from the National Health Commission showed on Thursday.

(Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu in Beijing; writing by Brenda Goh in Shanghai; editing by Jason Neely)