Toyota plans to return to about 90% of pre-quake levels in June

PanARMENIAN.Net - Japanese auto giant Toyota said its domestic output would return to about 90 percent of pre-quake levels in June thanks to a faster-than-expected recovery of parts supplies.

The forecast, more positive than a previous estimate of 70 percent production levels, will be a huge improvement on April when output was just 21.6 percent of that in the same month last year.

Production recovered to around 70 percent in May as suppliers - many of whom were impacted by the March 11 quake and tsunami catastrophe - were able to restore operations faster than expected.

There are no precise figures for production abroad, but expectations for June are between 70 and 100 percent, Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said on Wednesday, June 1.

Production will still be 70 percent in North America while almost all factories in Europe will operate at 100 percent, he said, AFP reported.

The March 11 disaster hammered production, shattered supply chains and crippled electricity-generating facilities, including the Fukushima nuclear power plant at the centre of an ongoing atomic emergency.

Amid the power and parts shortages, Toyota had slowed output or closed factories temporarily in Japan and abroad.

News reports said that, for the whole of the current fiscal year to March 2012, Toyota's global output would match last year's as the company is set to increase production from late 2011.