In yet another stark reminder of how intertwined today’s automotive business is, General Motors announced on Thursday that is suspending production at its Shreveport Assembly in Louisiana for the week of March 21 because of a parts shortage resulting from the crisis in Japan that started with last week’s tremendous earthquake and tsunami.

“We will resume production at Shreveport as soon as possible, and at this point, we have sufficient vehicles to meet customer demand,” General Motors said in a written statement.

The Shreveport Assembly in Louisiana produces the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon compact pickup trucks.

“At all other plants in North America, we continue to run normal operations. Like all global automakers, we will continue to follow the events in Japan closely to determine the business impact, working across the organization to maximize flexibility, supply the most critical operations, and effectively manage cost,” the automaker added.

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