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According to foreign media reports, the French car manufacturing trademark Citroen may stop all production at the Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port, UK, and transfer production to continental Europe instead. If Brexit succeeds, the British factory will not be able to make a profit.

Tang Weishi, chief executive of PSA, said the company had selected a site in southern Europe for future production of Vauxhall Astra and Opel Astra models to prevent the UK from achieving unsatisfactory results when it officially launched the EU.

PSA's move also led to the closure of its Cheshire plant in north-west England, which employs more than 1000 workers, and reduced PSA's production footprint in the UK to a van factory in Luton, which also employs more than a thousand workers.

Tang Weishi said: I prefer to produce Astra models in the British port of Ellesmere, and if the situation is not allowed, if it is not possible to make a profit in the factory, other measures must be taken. And said it had found a replacement factory in the port of Ellesmere.

Of all the car factories in the UK, the port of Ellesmere is the riskiest because 80 per cent of the region's production is exported to Europe and about 75 per cent of parts are imported. At present, Vauxhall and Opel Astra models are mainly produced in Ellesmere Port in the United Kingdom and the Gliveze plant in Poland.

When PSA issued the warning, the replacement of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was prepared to renegotiate with the EU on Brexit, otherwise Britain would leave the EU without an agreement on October 31, which would lead to customs checks and tariffs on importers and exporters.

Although Mr Tang said in June that Britain must also ensure relations with the EU after Brexit, he expressed concern that Brexit would affect the company's profits because of customs inspections and tariffs, whether or not a deal was reached.

Last month, the PSA Group said it planned to produce the next-generation Astra in Russelsheim, Germany, from 2021, and whether the UK factory would continue to produce the model would depend on the specific terms of Brexit. Tang Weishi said that a second factory is needed to meet the market demand and the company must make a decision within a few months.

The sense of urgency shown by PSA reflects warnings from British auto industry leaders that Brexit could have an impact on the development of the auto industry. New investment in the UK by carmakers and suppliers has fallen by 80 per cent since 2016, Ford and Honda have announced the closure of UK plants, and the future of Nissan's UK Sunderland plant is uncertain.

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