TOKYO -- Japanese appliance and household goods maker Iris Ohyama's plan to build a production plant in Vietnam had to be pushed back after the country's economy was brought to a standstill by the COVID outbreak, its chairman told Nikkei Asia in an interview on Tuesday.
The outbreak in Vietnam was blamed on slow progress with vaccination, making it necessary for the country to impose a lockdown from July to September. This forced some workers to sleep in their factories instead of commuting from home, which disrupted production, creating shortages of semiconductors and other key components for global automakers and electronics makers.
