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Following the Hyundai Motor Company's Ulsan plant, a foreign press reported that the Kia Motors plant in the US will also shut down the plant for two days next week.

The shortage of semiconductors around the world caused a supply shortage, and the US even went to the White House to treat the supply and demand of semiconductors as a security issue.



Reporter Kim Jung-woo on the report.



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Kia Motors' Georgia plant, which produces 360,000 vehicles annually, including Optima and Sorento, will be shut down for two days next week, Reuters reported.



This seems to be due to a shortage of automotive semiconductors, which is the second time after Hyundai Motor Company's Ulsan Plant, which will be suspended for 8 days starting from the 7th.




GM, Ford, and Volkswagen have already started to adjust production.



The shortage of automotive semiconductors stemmed from the failure to forecast demand in the finished vehicle industry.



We reduced the order volume in anticipation that sales would decrease due to Corona 19, but since the end of last year, the supply of new cars rapidly increased due to the supply of vaccines and the economic rebound.



The increased demand for electric vehicles also had an impact.



[Kim Dae-jong / Sejong University Business Administration Professor: About 200 semiconductors were used in existing gasoline and diesel vehicles. The number of semiconductors in electric vehicles is about 800 to 1,000.]



Semiconductors used in home appliances and IT products are also unsafe.



Due to the shortage of semiconductors, Foxconn's iPhone production decreased by 10% and the Chinese subsidiary of Whirlpool, an American consumer electronics company, decreased by 25%.



As the semiconductor supply shortage emerges as a threat to the industrial ecosystem, competition for leadership is intensifying, with the EU and the United States choosing to invest tens of trillions of won in the semiconductor industry.



In particular, the US, which is dealing with semiconductor independence as a national security task, plans to discuss countermeasures presided over by the White House on the 12th, and Samsung Electronics is also invited to discuss the results of the discussion.



(Video editing: Seungjin Lee)