Japanese auto giant Toyota is likely to suffer its first-ever operating loss in the year to March due to a stronger yen and a global industry slump, news reports said yesterday.
Toyota Motor Corp, which slashed its annual net profit forecast by more than half last month, is expected to downgrade its projections again at a year-end news conference on Monday, the Tokyo Shimbun said.
It would be Toyota’s first operating loss since it began releasing earnings figures for the year in March 1941, the Nikkei Shimbun business daily said.
PHOTO : AP
A Toyota spokeswoman declined comment on the reports, which did not identify their sources or provide figures.
Toyota has for years enjoyed brisk sales and profits as strong interest in its fuel-efficient vehicles put it on course to overtake ailing General Motors as the world’s top-selling automaker.
But the Japanese auto giant has since said it is reviewing its expansion plans as the global crisis takes a heavy toll on the industry.
General Motors and Chrysler — two of Detroit’s Big Three automakers — are on the verge of collapse, while Japan’s second largest automaker Honda Motor Co this week sharply revised its growth forecasts.
Last month, Toyota revised its net profit forecast to ¥550 billion (US$6.2 billion) in the current year, down from the ¥1.25 trillion previously projected.
That would mark a decline of 68 percent from the previous year.
Toyota also revised its operating profit forecast to ¥600 billion from its earlier estimate of ¥1.6 trillion.
But the news reports said Toyota would further downgrade its sales and earnings projections as the company was battered by a sharp decline in global auto sales and the yen’s continued appreciation against the dollar.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)