DETROIT, US - Suzuki has no plans to pull out of a joint venture with General Motors even though the Japanese automaker put production at the Canadian plant on indefinite hold this year, a senior executive said Thursday.

"The market has been terrible," said Gene Brown, American Suzuki's vice president of marketing and public relations.

"But that doesn't mean we're going to withdraw from the venture."

Brown said he wasn't in a position to discuss when Suzuki might resume production at Canadian Automotive Manufacturing, the company's only assembly plant in North America.

GM recently pulled out of a joint venture in the US state of California with Suzuki's Japanese rival Toyota, as the largest US automaker restructured under bankruptcy. Toyota, the world's largest carmaker, is now considering
closing the California assembly plant.

Canada's Ingersoll, Ontario plant builds GM's Chevrolet Equinox, a sport utility vehicle which features prominently in the automaker's future plans as it edges out of the shadow of bankruptcy.

Suzuki was building its XL7, also a sport utility vehicle, at the plant before suspending its production - along with two sedans - after auto sales collapsed last fall.

The vehicles made up a substantial portion of the Japanese automaker's North American lineup, but its sales have dropped by nearly 40 percent this year after making steady gains in the middle of the decade.