Automobile production in South Korea fell last month on weak demand both at home and abroad, a government report showed Wednesday.

The number of vehicles produced in domestic factories was 343,327 in March, down 5.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
It came as demand for locally-made cars weakened both at home and abroad. Partial strikes by workers of Renault Samsung lowered the carmaker's production by about 40 percent, contributing to the overall production fall.

Auto export declined 3.3 percent over the year to 213,736 units in March. In terms of value, the auto shipment shed 1.2 percent.

Car parts shipment lost 0.8 percent to 1.93 billion U.S. dollars on soft demand from North America and the European Union (EU).

In the domestic market, car sales went down 5.7 percent to 156,927 vehicles in the cited period on the fall in sales of imported vehicles.

Imported car sales tumbled 28.4 percent in March from a year ago, pulling down the market share of foreign luxury vehicles to 12.6 percent last month from 16.6 percent from a year earlier.

Source: Xinhua