Toyota Motor forecasts sharp cuts in production, sale in Russia
TOKYO. August 12. KAZINFORM Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation forecasts this year a twofold reduction in the volume of car sale in Russia in connection with dropping demand. Simultaneously, the production of Toyota Camry cars at the corporation's assembly plant outside St. Petersburg may be reduced by about 20 percent, as compared with 2008, Itar-Tass learnt on Wednesday from informed sources in the country's automobile manufacturing sector, Kazinform refers to Itar-Tass.
According to the sources, in the period from January to June the volume of sales in Russia of the world's largest motor corporation "dropped by 56 percent and reached 42 thousand cars." Last year the company sold 207 thousand cars in Russia, that is "if the market situation persists, maybe it will not be able on the year results to rise above 100 thousand." One of the reasons for the sharp drop in sales is stopping work for several months by the Toyota Bank that is engaged in the provision of financial services, including giving automobile credits.
In the first six months of the year Toyota Motor Corporation's assembly plant in Shushary manufactured about 2,400 Toyota Camry cars, and as experts do not expect a sharp growth in demand for them, the production volume on the year results is to be some 5 thousand automobiles," the source say. "This is approximately by 20 percent less than in 2008 when Toyota produced 6,400 cars." In their view, the "plant's stoppage in the period from late March to April 6" affected in a certain way the production scale.
The Toyota press service confirmed to Itar-Tass that "the motor giant is really expecting a considerable decline in production on the Russian market taking into account the economic situation in Russia and decline in sales." "At the same time, if before this June the indicators were not worsening, then now we observe signs of stabilisation, therefore we are not ready to specify the figures," a spokesman for the corporation stressed, Kazinform cites Itar-Tass. See www.itar-tass.com for full version.