Injection Moulding Asia Medical Sector
Automotive makers: going the extra mile to keep the medical sector safe accounting for 30% of total global car sales in 2018, according to Beijing-based Daxue Consulting, and it had factories suspending operations amid the Covid-19. Wuhan, production base to some of the world’s major car companies, General Motors (GM), Honda, Nissan, Peugeot Group, and Renault, represented 10% of China’s carmaking capacity in 2019. Inevitably, the outbreak contributed to decline in car sales in China by 92% in the first half of February, according to Daxue. Accelerated into a pandemic, Covid-19 has forced more plant shutdowns outside of China. The US and Europe, registering staggering coronavirus cases within weeks, have seen car plants and facilities going offline to contain the virus. Asian countries afflicted by Covid-19 like Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, where the automotive sector is a significant economic pillar, are likewise bracing for a potential market crash. Market experts suggest a more bleak post-pandemic scenario for the automotive industry. Based on a poll conducted by the Automotive Supply Chain and Technology team at IHS Markit, a significant degree of uncertainty looms over the automotive sector, in general.
As the number of Covid-19 cases continues
to rise globally, medical protective equipment for healthcare providers is in short supply.
This has seen the automotive sector rise to the
occasion with solutions, says Angelica Buan in this report.
Automotive industry in 2020: a fallen star In almost the same period last year, the automotive industry growth was forecast to stagnate against the impact of the US trade war since it began in 2018. The automotive industry wrestled with the up to 25% tariffs levied on vehicles and parts. This situation not only affected the automotive supply chains of the US and China but also that of Europe and other regions. But just as the global automotive industry was looking to rebound in 2020, along came another blow – the Covid19 outbreak, said to have originated from China’s “motor city” of Wuhan in the Hubei province. It has, since, grounded a majority of China’s economic activities. China is the world’s largest automotive market
Car makers are flexing their capacity to augment shortage of PPEs for medical front line workers
1 MARCH / APRIL 2020
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