Saturday, July 06, 2013: Japanese electronics giant, Panasonic was reportedly having a hard time with its European solar cell plant, which is why it decided to shut it down. Panasonic said on Friday that it will close its only European Solar cell plant based in Hungary, which will result in 550 employees getting laid off.
The assembly factory based out of Dorog, Hungary will close its production in September, while its official closure will happen in March, said a Panasonic spokeswoman in Tokyo. The firm plans to maintain its global solar cell production level by shifting the European workload to other solar cell factories based in Japan and Malaysia. The decision came after the company was unable to cope up with the European solar cell market shrinkage. One of the major reasons of the situation was cuts in government subsidies.
However, the situation is much better in Japan. The Japanese solar cell market has seen considerable growth because of the public incentive programs from the government for promoting renewable energy. The spokeswoman added, “This sector constantly experiences dramatic changes of demand. Our decision is to deal with the changes in the sector. We wanted to increase our cost competitiveness and profitability.”
