Mazda-Ford Stop the factory in the U.S.?

Mazda-Ford Stop the factory in the U.S.? - Mazda Motor Corp., one of Japan's largest automaker, will stop production of a joint venture plant with Ford Motor Co. in the United States.
Japanese news Agency, NHK, said Mazda Mazda6 will shift production fromAutoAlliance International Inc. plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, to the factory in YamaguchiPrefecture, Japan, in early 2013. Last year, this factory produces 54 thousand vehicles.

"The strengthening yen against the U.S. dollar which reached 13 percent in the past yearto make Mazda's overseas sales revenue fell," the report said.

Shipping Mazda in the U.S. in May and down 21 percent from a year earlier. KiyoshiOzaki, head of the finance company based in Hiroshima, said the company willannounce plans U.S. production in the middle of this year.



Ken Haruki, a spokesman for Mazda in Tokyo, and Jeremy Barnes, Mazda North American spokesman, declined to comment on this report. "The company has beendiscussing the future plans for our factory in the U.S.," said Haruki.

In a statement, Mazda said the report on AutoAlliance plant closures are not based oninformation disclosed by Mazda. "Mazda and Ford jointly study the possibilities forAutoAlliance, and we have not announced today,"the statement said, as quoted byAutomotive News, Sunday, June 5, 2011

A Ford spokesman also declined to comment on the report.