World's top car manufacturer announces it will halt output at all Japanese
plants for 11 days in February and March.

TAHARA, AICHI PREFECTURE, JAPAN (FILE - 2007) REUTERS -
Toyota Motor Corp is to shut its Japanese plants for 11 days in
February and March to reduce stocks of cars unsold due to a global slump.
President Katsuaki Watanabe told Reuters on Tuesday (January 6) at a
New Year's party for Japanese businessmen in Tokyo that Toyota was just
adapting to current global conditions.

"The world market is currently contracting and that is the
environment we have to operate in, so new plant expansions is just not
possible right now," Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told reporters at
an event hosted by Japan's top business lobbies.

The slide in December sales in the United States, Toyota's biggest
market, was the sharpest fall in more than a quarter of a century and worse
than declines at struggling U.S. rivals, General Motors and Ford Motor.
The new stoppage comes on top of a three-day production halt this month
at Toyota's 12 directly-operated Japanese plants -- four car assembly plants
and eight for engines, transmissions and other components.

Japanese-built cars make up around 40 percent of Toyota's sales in the
United States, where cars and trucks made overseas have been piling up at
ports and dealer lots.

Automakers everywhere are cutting back production as sales continue
their slide, unhindered by generous sales incentives.
Domestic rivals Honda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co have both cut plans
by at least 200,000 vehicles for the current business year ending on March 31,
and analysts expect further adjustments during the final January-March
quarter.

Toyota has not disclosed the number of vehicles affected by production
stoppages. The four domestic factories combined built an average 130,000
vehicles a month in 2007, according to the latest available data. Toyota is
planning to turn the 11 days in February and March into paid company
holidays.

A sweeping suspension of domestic production is almost unprecedented.
In 1993, Toyota halted output for one day as a strong yen hammered sales.
Toyota warned two weeks ago it would post a first-ever annual operating
loss, blaming a relentless sales slide and a crippling rise in the yen, and
said it would adjust production as needed beyond January.

Tokyo Stock Exchange President Atsushi Saito said Toyota is still
better placed with its two trillion cash on hand compared to two months worth
of cash General Motors has.

"If once everybody see the recovery of private consumption in the
world, I think Toyota will be far ahead to any other competitors," said
Saito.

On Monday (January 5), data showed Toyota's Japan sales slid 18 percent
in December, and were down 7.4 percent for 2008.

Watanabe said last month Toyota would aim to rationalise global
operations to create a cost structure that would generate profits from
parent-only vehicle sales of 7 million units, about 1 million fewer than it
sold last year.

The slump in demand for cars, as consumers put off big-ticket purchases
amid a global credit crunch, has had a swift and damaging knock-on effect on
auto parts makers.