OREANDA-NEWS   For the first time in 88 years, the European automobile concern Volkswagen will completely stop the production of cars at one of its enterprises in Germany. This is reported by the Financial Times. The production line of the Dresden plant will stop working on December 16.

The Dresden plant, which was launched in 2002, does not have the largest capacity. Over the entire period of his work, less than 200,000 cars were assembled there, which is less than half of the annual output of the concern's flagship plant in Wolfsburg.

The shutdown of production in Dresden is part of an overall strategy to optimize sites in the country, agreed with the trade unions last year. It also involves the reduction of 35,000 jobs in the German division of the concern. The management explains that the decision to close was not an easy one, but from an economic point of view it was necessary.

Initially, the Dresden plant was created as a demonstration of the company's engineering capabilities and was focused on the production of the Phaeton executive sedan. After the completion of the production of this model in 2016, the company was reoriented to electric cars and recently produced the ID.3 model.