SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Yonhap) -- Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's biggest carmaker, said Tuesday it will suspend one of its domestic plants for two weeks to control inventories amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hyundai Motor plans to suspend the Asan plant, which produces the Sonata and Grandeur sedans, from Wednesday through Jan. 6 due mainly to weak sales of the Sonata model, a company spokesman said.

The sale of the Sonata sedan plunged 31 percent to 63,078 units from January to November compared with the same period of last year.

In the first 11 months, Hyundai's overall sales fell 16 percent to 3,369,055 vehicles from 4,026,075 a year earlier as the pandemic continued to affect production and sales.

Hyundai has seven domestic plants -- five in Ulsan, one in Asan and one in Jeonju -- and 10 overseas plants -- four in China and one each in the United States, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Russia, India and Brazil. Their combined capacity reaches 5.5 million vehicles.

kyongae.choi@yna.co.kr
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