Japan's top automaker Toyota will suspend production at its domestic plants for 11 days in February and March due to dwindling global auto sales, a media report says.
"Toyota would halt production at most of its domestic plants over an additional 11 days in February and March, highlighting the impact of the relentless decline in global demand," the Financial Times said.
The carmaker said it was cutting 18 shifts over 11 days or the equivalent of nine days' production at all 12 of its domestic facilities in those two months, it added.
The cutback in production has been announced on top of three days' production halt this month and would impact most of Toyota's models made in Japan, excluding those outsourced to subcontractors, the report revealed.
Further, sales of new vehicles in Japan slumped to the lowest level in three decades in 2008 as recession hit Asia's biggest economy, piling pressure on its auto giants, an industry group had said.
Domestic sales excluding mini-vehicles fell 6.5 per cent from last year to 3.2 million units in 2008, the fifth straight annual decline, as per the Japan Automobile Dealers Association. It was the lowest level since 1974 when automakers had sold 3.1 million units.
Last month, Toyota said it had faced an "unprecedented" operating loss of $1.69 billion for fiscal 2008, the first such loss in the company's history, amid declining global auto sales and a surging yen.
The latest projection of an operating loss of 150 billion yen ($1.69 billion) in its second downward revision for the year to March 2009 represents a reversal from the previous estimate of an operating profit of 600 billion yen for the year through next March.
