国际英语新闻：Toyota to halve domestic output, suspends production

TOKYO, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Toyota Motor Corp. suspended operations at 11 of its 12 domestic factories on Saturday and aimed to halve domestic production from February to April from a year earlier to correspond to global economic recession, local media reported.

    Toyota set the production target for the period at about 9,000 units per operating day and will suspend operations for a total of14 days between January and March, Kyodo News reported Saturday.

    Toyota's domestic output for 2008 averaged about 20,000 units per day. Late last year, the company had set the production level for the January-March period at 12,000 units per day but apparently decided to reduce the level from February due to the worse-than-projected deterioration in terms of new car sales.

    The scale of suspension is unparalleled for Toyota. It suspended production in August 1993 at all its domestic plants forone day to deal with the yen's rapid appreciation against the dollar that cut into its earnings.

    In January, Toyota will stop operations at 11 of the 12 factories for three days -- Jan. 24 and Jan. 30 in addition to Saturday.

    In February and March, the carmaker will suspend operations at all of the 12 factories for 11 days.

    Toyota's three manufacturing subsidiaries -- Toyota Motor Hokkaido Inc., Toyota Motor Tohoku Corp. and Toyota Motor Kyushu Inc. -- will also suspend operations during January and March in line with the move by the parent.

    In December, Toyota said it expects a 150 billion yen operatingloss for the current business year to March in what would be its first-ever group operating loss.