Chinese Panasonic Facilities Damaged During Protests

Civil unrest in China has resulted in demonstrations and violence against Japanese interests in the country. With many of the world's electronics manufacturers having facilities inside China, it comes as no surprise that some of those factories have been damaged during the violence. Panasonic has issued an official statement about damage to its Chinese manufacturing operations.

So far, Panasonic reports that there were no injuries to its personnel in China. However, the company has had damage to several of its manufacturing facilities. Damage to facilities include Panasonic's Industrial Devices Company, Qingdao factory where electric components such as switches are constructed. This factory suffered damage to the building and equipment. Panasonic says that preparations to restart operations at the factory are underway, but no ETA is available.

Panasonic also suffered damage to its Industrial Devices Company, Suzhou factory where printed circuit board materials and printed circuit boards are manufactured. Panasonic says that there was some damage to the building and equipment, but no major damage was sustained to production equipment. Operations at this plant restarted on September 17.

Panasonic's Systems & Communications Company, Zhuhai factory where the company manufactures fixed-line phones has stopped operations and workers have stayed home. That plant was closed after 10 Chinese employees started a protest at the site. This location is preparing to restart operations. Panasonic says that it's unable to forecast the effect of the damage at this time and will announce if damage and plant closures will affect its financial outlook at a later date.