The local subsidiary of General Motors Company (GM) will close its Australian manufacturing plants in 2016, the company said Wednesday.
Ford Motor Company has also decided to wind up its manufacturing operations in Australia and industry analysts expect that Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp will follow the US carmakers in shutting plants.
Mitsubishi Motor Company, the smallest among a quartet of carmakers, had exited Australia in 2008.
General Motors Chairman Dan Akerson said 2,900 jobs would be lost over the next four years.
“The decision to end manufacturing in Australia reflects the perfect storm of negative influences the industry faces in the country, including the sustained strength of the Australian dollar, high cost of production, small domestic market and arguably the most competitive and fragmented auto market in the world,” he said in a statement from Detroit.
The company had it would only stay in Australia after 2016 if the Government came up with what Managing Director Mike Devereux characterized as more “rent.” Devereux, who heads a company that made 84,000 cars last year, has said Australia is “among the most expensive places to build cars anywhere on the planet’’.