Toyota president Akio Toyoda, grandson of the founder, has voiced his commitment to protecting Japanese jobs and promised to build at least 3 million vehicles per year in Japan. But because the yen is at record highs against the U.S. dollar and sales are declining in the U.S., that commitment is being tested,
the
Wall Street Journal
reported.
The article said that Toyota is losing $5 billion a year in the Japanese market, and the strong yen has shrunk profits on exports.
The report noted that in 1995 Hiroshi Okuda, then Toyota’s president, first pledged that the company would produce at least 3 million vehicles annually in Japan. When Toyoda became president in 2009, he reiterated the pledge, though competitors were doing more manufacturing overseas.
Toyota’s commitment went hand-in-hand with an ascendant view held by some — including Mr. Toyoda’s father, honorary chairman Shoichiro Toyoda — that the company had become too focused on short-term goals.
There was a sense that employees, for one, deserved as much attention as shareholders. Mr. Toyoda went a step further, speaking of a broader corporate responsibility to protect the Japanese economy.
(Source:
Wall Street Journal,
Nov. 29, 2011.)
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