BMW Brilliance Automotive's plant in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province File photo: VCG

Auto plants in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, including two plants of BMW Group's China joint venture, have suspended production for a week, as the city announced on Wednesday strict measures to stop the spread of COVID-19. 

The city will suspend all non-essential movements and activities, and companies that are not related to the city's operations will suspend work or work from home, the Shenyang municipal government said on Wednesday.

Due to anti-epidemic measures in Shenyang, the Dadong and Tiexi plants of BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA) temporarily suspended production on Wednesday.

According to BBA, a Chinese-German joint venture, its Shenyang base - the Tiexi and Dadong vehicle plants, a research and development center and a powertrain plant - is the largest production base in the BMW Group's worldwide production network. 

BBA's Shenyang plants had produced 4 million vehicles as of September 2021, per industry report.

Based on that number, the one-week shutdown at BBA's Shenyang plants would reduce production by about 2 percent, and top-selling models can be picked up a week later, Zhang Xiang, a research fellow at the Research Center of Automobile Industry Innovation under the North China University of Technology, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

BBA's Tiexi and Dadong plants have an annual capacity of 760,000 vehicles a year. The capacity of the Dadong plant is 360,000 units, and the capacity of the Tiexi plant is 400,000 units. 

A 2-percent production reduction means approximately 15,200 cars.

Previously, FAW's five vehicle plants in Changchun in Northeast China's Jilin Province and Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory suspended production due to the epidemic. The four-day suspension caused an estimated production loss of 48,000 vehicles for FAW.

BBA is the largest joint-venture vehicle enterprise in Shenyang. The Shenyang plants mainly produce for the Chinese market, BMW's biggest in the world, said Zhang.

BMW's sales in China in 2021 stood at 846,000 vehicles, up 8.9 percent year-on-year.

According to an industry practitioner, there were more than 20 automated guided vehicles at the power train workshop of Tiexi plant of BBA as of mid-2021, assisting workers in picking and transporting.

"BBA's Shenyang Tiexi plant is a model of Industry 4.0, which means a high automation rate, and it is highly intelligent. Human labor is less essential," the person told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Shenyang is one of the major vehicle production bases in China. As of 2021, the city had five vehicle production enterprises and 357 vehicle parts enterprises. 

In addition to BBA, Shenyang also hosts SAIC General Motors Corp, as well as auto parts supporting enterprises, such as Dräxlmaier Group, Delphi Auto Parts and Valeo.

"But there is not much impact on the global car industry. For instance, BMW has many factories in Europe, the US and elsewhere," said Zhang.