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Conflict in Egypt Affects Automakers

The eruption of violence and fear in Egypt is not only affecting those that are living in the area. Automakers such as General Motors, Daimler AG, and BMW have ceased production in the area in order to make sure that their employees are not put in harm's way. 

GM has ceased production at their plant near Cairo in order to allow employees to be at home in safety. The company has made no decisions as to when they plan to reopen these plants since no one knows for sure when the environment will become safe again in Egypt. Daimler and BMW have both shut down their plants in Egypt. While Daimler has flown its employees from Germany back to the country in order to keep them safe. BMW has also flown two employees and their families out of the country. 

Nissan has also ceased production in Egypt and plans to look at the situation again in a few days after the government makes an announcement, deciding whether they will reopen or stay shut down. 

Along with plants that are closing down in Egypt, Volkswagen has stopped deliveries of their vehicles to Egypt fearing that the cars would never get there to begin with. 

Leoni AG is a parts distributor located in Egypt who has said that they hope to have enough back production in order to meet the needs of the area. Stating that getting workers to the plant to work was increasingly becoming a problem. All in all, they have only managed to get around 66% of workers safely to the plant to work, while others stayed home. This is after they scheduled workers to be within the time limits of curfews and working with the transportation system. 

What is this going to mean for other parts of the world? We could see a part shortage since many get their parts from plants in Egypt, while many automakers make certain models of cars in Egypt, it could be the number of these cars decrease dramatically.