Mitsubishi Fuso halts production at Tramagal plant due to lack of components

Mitsubishi Fuso Truck Europe has announced an indefinite halt to production at the Tramagal plant, due to delays in component delivery and a shortfall in the supply of semiconductors.

The company’s official source confirmed, in an interview with Lusa News Agency, the compulsory suspension “starting tomorrow”, on October 15, after attributing this to “the disruption of the component supply chain”, and stated that “production stopped as a result of problems. At the Sines container terminal and ship delays “.

According to the same source, “this problem is added to the scarcity of the supply of semiconductors”, with the resumption of activity “subject to resolving the problems.”

The Mitsubishi Fuso Truck Europe (MFTE) plant in Tramagal is the production center of FUSO in Europe and employs 450 workers, incorporating Daimler Truck, the world’s largest heavy-duty vehicle manufacturer.

The company also reported that activity at the MFTE plant in Tramgal, in the municipality of Abrantes, “has been affected in recent months by global issues of container shortages and delays for vessels arriving from Japan on the sea route between Asia and Europe”. which “really led to sporadic pauses” in production.

The same source added, “This week, the situation has worsened with further disruptions in the supply chain due to delays related to significant congestion in operations at the Sines port and in rail transport.”

He concluded that under the current scenario, “the plant in Tramgal will stop starting tomorrow, the 15th, the situation will be assessed and the supply chain will be restored to allow production to resume next week.”

The annual production in 2020 at the Tramagal plant was 6,328 units, and the turnover amounted to 151 million euros. With a total of 450 employees, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland were its main markets for MFTE.

MFTE has already produced more than 200,000 vehicles at the Tramagal plant, 95% of which are for export.

In 2019, 11,036 Canter cars were manufactured, more than 90% of which are for export to the European market and also to the United States, Israel, Turkey and Morocco.

The company located in the municipality of Abrantes, the largest exporter in the province of Santarem, generated revenues of approximately 222 million euros in 2019.

With continuous manufacturing of the Canter model since 1980, the Tramagal unit has specialized in light trucks, having started assembling the eCanter in 2017, the first all-electric truck to be assembled in series and currently in use in many cities, such as Lisbon, New York, Amsterdam, London, Berlin and Tokyo.

Portugal News Agency