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| Two-month shutdown for Honda UK | Two-month shutdown for Honda UK |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| Honda has announced that it plans to stop production at its plant in Swindon for the months of April and May, because of a collapse in global sales. | |
| The carmaker, Japan's second-largest, announced in November that the plant would shut during February and March. | |
| Honda said that there were no plans for redundancies and that it intended to "safeguard employment" for those workers who wanted to stay. | |
| Earlier on Friday, Honda said that it would cut jobs and production in Japan. | |
| No recovery | |
| "The European car market is not showing any signs of recovery yet and, therefore, we have to reduce our production output further," said David Hodgetts, director of Honda UK Manufacturing. | |
| "We will continue to take prompt and flexible counter-measures to ensure that we can meet these challenges with this severe market situation," he added. | |
| The halt in production amounts to 35 working days. | |
| Honda employs 4,200 people in the UK and exports the Civic to 60 countries worldwide. | |
| Honda announced earlier on Friday that it would cut 3,100 temporary jobs in Japan and reduce domestic production by 56,000 vehicles, to combat a dramatic slump in global car sales. | |
| Rivals Toyota and Nissan have also announced production cuts this week. | |
| EU business ministers are meeting in Brussels on Friday to discuss ways to help carmakers through the economic downturn. |