Production at Saab’s troubled plant in Trollhättan has stopped once again as the carmaker continues negotiations over payment and delivery terms with a number of suppliers.
Limited production commenced at the beginning of June following a seven-week suspension because of non-payment to suppliers, who then refused to continue delivering parts.
Saab’s chairman and CEO Victor Muller said the company had anticipated it would not see a smooth inflow of supplies when production was restarted on May 27. “We have a few thousand suppliers worldwide with each of whom we have to reach acceptable terms and conditions to resume production of parts and subsequent deliveries,” he said. “Many suppliers are located outside Europe and re-stocking inevitably takes time.
Muller went onto say that agreements with those remaining suppliers still in negotiation for a settlement with Saab would be reached within the next few days but he could not rule out further “production hiccups” in the near future.
The company now has almost 10,000 vehicle back orders to fill, including those for the Saab 9-4x which is currently built in Mexico.
Saab Automobile and its owner Spyker Cars announced this week that they had signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Pang Da Automobile Trade and Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile a strategic alliance consisting of a tripartite distribution joint venture and a tripartite manufacturing joint venture for Saab-branded and ‘child’ brand vehicles in China.
Following and agreement with Chinese carmaker Pang Da that included a 50-50-distribution joint venture for Saab-branded vehicles in China, the Chinese distributor and Saab Automobile have now agreed with Youngman that it will take 33% of the shares in the distribution joint venture while Pang Da takes 34% and Saab Automobile 33%.
