Toyota Motor, the world’s biggest automaker, is expected to suffer a second consecutive annual loss because of the global economic slump and a stronger yen, Japan’s Nikkei daily reported yesterday.
Toyota’s group operating loss may top ¥500 billion (US$5 billion) for the current fiscal year, which started on April 1, the business daily said.
It would be the second straight operating loss, as the company has already warned that it expects an operating loss of ¥450 billion, its first ever, for the fiscal year to March 31.
PHOTO: AP
Revenue for the current year is expected to fall to around ¥20 trillion, down from an estimated ¥21 trillion for the year before, the Nikkei said.
Toyota group auto sales are now estimated at 6.5 million vehicles for the fiscal year just started — which, if confirmed, would be the first time they have fallen below 7 million units, it said.
That forecast is mainly because of a delay in recovery of the US auto industry, with the Japanese and European auto markets also expected to remain stagnant and the impact of a strong yen against the dollar and the euro.
NOT COMPETITIVE
A strong yen lowers the competitiveness of Japanese products overseas.
Toyota overtook General Motors last year to become the world’s top-selling automaker, but only because the US giant’s sales fell faster than its own.
The Japanese company has moved to lower production, cut jobs and appointed a new president from its founding family, Akio Toyoda, to replace Katsuaki Watanabe in response to the crisis, its biggest ever.
The company’s US division will also bring back a former top executive from retirement, as the world’s top automaker saw its US sales fall 39 percent last month, worse than the industrywide decline, Autodata Corp said.
NEW ROLE
Yoshi Inaba, 63, will return to a position at Toyota’s US operations, but his new role has not yet been identified, Mike Michels, vice president of communications at Toyota Motor Sales USA, said on Thursday.
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
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CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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