Toyota JV cuts China output, no layoff plans

FAW Toyota, Toyota Motor Corp's biggest car venture in China, is scaling back output in China this year as market growth slows but has no plans to lay off workers, a local newspaper quoted an executive as saying.

FAW Toyota, the top Japanese car maker's venture with FAW Group, is lowering its output by an estimated 7 to 8 percent this year and may also adjust its production plan next year in line with market conditions, Satoru Mori, president of the firm's sales unit, told China Business News on the sidelines of the Guangzhou auto show.

The article did not specify whether the 7 to 8 percent figure referred to a reduction from the company's production plan for the full year, and gave no production figures.

In China, one of its fastest growing markets, Toyota sold 475,000 cars in the first 10 months of the year, up 23 percent from a year earlier, while sales in October were up 15 percent at 46,000 units, Shoju Nozaki, executive vice president of Toyota's China operation, told the newspaper.

Production capacity at the FAW Toyota venture, which makes Corolla and Crown sedans, currently stands at 443,000 units, out of Toyota's total 643,000 units of capacity in the country, a Toyota spokesman in China said.

Toyota is also scaling back production in other parts of Asia due to weakening demand as the global economy falters.

It plans a cutback at its 200,000-unit-a-year plant in Thailand and has sought early retirement for 340 of its 1,850 temporary workers there, a company spokeswoman said last week.