Toyota looks to year end for recovery

Toyota Motor Corp said it could take until the end of the year before production has fully recovered to levels before the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11 devastated Japan’s northeast, disrupting the supply of key parts.

By The Newsroom

Published 23rd Apr 2011, 07:00 BST

In the clearest forecast yet of how long it would take for the Japanese auto industry to recover, Toyota said output would start to pick up in July in Japan and around August overseas, with a complete recovery expected in November or December.

Until then, Toyota’s domestic factories will continue to work at volumes equivalent to half of original plans, and at an average 40 per cent outside Japan, the world’s biggest automaker said.

“With this many aftershocks, we’ve seen some of the recovery work thrown back to square one many, many times,” President Akio Toyoda said.

The news from Toyota came just hours after Japan’s Renesas Electronics, a major supplier of chips to the auto industry, said it would resume operations at a damaged factory north of Tokyo on June 15 – a few weeks ahead of schedule.

Toyota Japan