BEIJING, Aug. 29 -- Toyota Motor Corp, the world's second-largest carmaker, lowered its forecast for 2009 auto sales growth to 2.1 percent from 5.6 percent as record fuel prices and slowing economies damp global demand.
Sales will climb to 9.7 million vehicles next year from an estimated 9.5 million this year, the company said in a statement Thursday. It previously forecast sales to rise to 10.4 million from 9.85 million.
The automaker will reduce production in the United Kingdom and Poland, adding to cuts in the United States. Toyota lowered the target for North America, its biggest market, by 10 percent as drivers buy fewer sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks because of gasoline prices that have reached 4 U.S. dollars a gallon.
"The operating environment is getting tougher, that's for sure," said Edwin Merner, who oversees 2 billion dollars as president of Atlantis Investment Research Corp in Tokyo. "Those numbers are fairly realistic."
The company will cut one of two daily shifts at UK and Polish factories later in the year, Executive Vice-President Takeshi Uchiyamada told reporters in Tokyo Thursday. The plant in Burnaston, England, builds engines and assembles cars including the Avensis sedan and Auris hatchback. The Polish factory makes engines and transmissions.
The company is cutting production in the United Kingdom as it prepares to revamp the Avensis sedan, Uchiyamada said. It has no plan to fire workers, he added.
The company will introduce 18 models that emit less pollution in Western Europe by the end of next year.
(Source: China Daily/Agencies)
