Toyota to shelve capital spending plans, cut bonuses: reports

TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp. will postpone large capital investments and eliminate executive bonuses due to the worldwide slump in auto sales and the yen's continued appreciation, Japanese media reported Sunday.

The moves by Japan's top automaker come amid speculation that it will report a 1.1-billion-dollar loss for the second half of the year to March, its first interim operating loss since introducing US accounting standards in 1999.

Japan's Nikkei business daily reported the company will freeze its plan to boost annual production capacity at one of its factories in China by 50 percent to 150,000 units by the end of 2009.

Toyota will also suspend a plan to increase production capacity in Brazil and India as well as in the Japanese city of Takaoka, the Nikkei said, without naming sources.

It will delay the opening of a plant under construction in the southern US state of Mississippi until 2011 or later, the report said.

The postponements by Toyota are likely to hurt parts suppliers and car materials makers, and other automakers could follow its lead in cutting capital spending, the Nikkei said.

The auto giant's plan to eliminate bonuses for its executives this fiscal year will save about one billion yen, the Mainichi Shimbun daily and Kyodo News reported.