General Motors Co. will shut down one of its four car assembly plants in South Korea by the end of May due to lower demand for its vehicles, the local unit of the U.S. carmaker said Tuesday.
The plant to be closed is in Gunsan, 270 kilometers south of Seoul. It has been underutilized, running at 20 percent of its capacity for the past three years. GM has five production facilities in Korea -- four car assembly plants and one transmission factory.
The move comes as part of the Detroit-based carmaker's broad restructuring program across the world. It has been aggressively scaling back or shutting down underperforming businesses and it "is now focused on finding a solution for its South Korean operations," GM Korea Co. said in a statement.
"The performance of our operations in South Korea needs to be urgently addressed by GM Korea and its key stakeholders. As we are at a critical juncture of needing to make product allocation decisions, the ongoing discussions must demonstrate significant progress by the end of February, when GM will make important decisions on next steps," GM Executive Vice President Barry Engle said in the statement. (Yonhap)