April 30 (Reuters) – UK automotive production fell 8.2% in March from a year earlier, hit by a slump in commercial vehicle output, parts \u200cshortages at a major plant and weaker exports to Asia and the \u200cUnited States, data from a trade body showed on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Although the decline eased from February’s 17.2% fall, \u200bthe outlook for the sector remained challenging, the the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said.<\/p>\n
UK carmakers face mounting pressure as the Middle East conflict threatens to further drive up energy costs and pressure demand, while the European Union’s “Made in EU” proposal risks \u200ccurbing access for UK-made vehicles \u2060to parts of the bloc’s market.<\/p>\n
UK’s total auto output in March fell to 72,511 units, with car production down 0.8% at \u206069,755 and commercial vehicle output down 68.3% at 2,756, the SMMT said.<\/p>\n
While exports continued to account for the bulk of output, shipments abroad fell for both cars and commercial \u200bvehicles. The \u200bEuropean Union remained the UK’s largest market, \u200band demand from the bloc \u200crose for a fourth consecutive month, with exports up 4.8% year-on-year.<\/p>\n
“We must ensure any ‘Made in Europe’ proposals from the European Commission do not exclude the UK as the two industries are integrated such that both would suffer if the free trade provisions enshrined in the Brexit deal were undermined,” SMMT CEO Mike Hawes said.<\/p>\n
The SMMT \u200cand carmakers have called for clarity on whether \u200bUK-built vehicles would be excluded under the EU’s \u200blatest proposal, warning that uncertainty could \u200bweigh on investments as competition from low-cost Chinese electric vehicle \u200cmakers intensifies.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the SMMT said \u200bthe annual value \u200bof EU-Britain automotive trade was about 80 billion euros ($93.59 billion) and the two sides remain each other’s biggest passenger car markets.<\/p>\n
“Car production stabilising in March \u200bis welcome news for both \u200cassembly and the wider supply chain,” Hawes said, but warned that geopolitical \u200btensions offer little room for optimism.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.8548 euros)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nithyashree R \u200bB in Bengaluru; Editing by Diti Pujara)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 30 (Reuters) – UK automotive production fell 8.2% in March from a year earlier, hit by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11361,11362,1469,4927,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-25364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-car-production","9":"tag-commercial-vehicle","10":"tag-european-union","11":"tag-smmt","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116490582410893510","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}